Myntra generates love for sale on Twitter

Myntra extended its 'I Love Sale' television campaign on Twitter with a one-day activity which resulted in 7,000 tweets and 100 new followers for the brand.

E-commerce firm Myntra.com, which launched the 'I Love Sale' television campaign with Lisa Haydon in January to promote its End of Season Sale, has extended the campaign on Twitter with a one-day contest. According to the company, the activity was conceptualised to engage people on Twitter using the hashtag, #ReplaceMovieTitlesWithSale.

The one-day activity was live between 2 pm and 5 pm on February 5. Myntra launched it with a creative made especially for this activity and a link to the guidelines. People were asked to replace famous movie titles with the word 'sale' and send their entries with a tweet to the hashtag #ReplaceMovieTitlesWithSale.

According to Myntra, the hashtag became the most popular trend in India within the first 10 minutes and was soon the second popular trend worldwide. In the three hours the contest was live, Myntra claims to have received more than 7,000 tweets. It gained around 100 new Twitter followers during the time frame (http://storify.com/myntra/replacemovietitleswithsale).

Speaking to afaqs! about the idea behind the campaign, Manu Prasad, head, social media, Myntra.com says that the campaign was meant to generate engagement around the message of movies and thus gain more followers. However, Prasad informs that the activity was not meant to generate conversions and sales on the website.

Four winners were chosen based on the uniqueness/humour quotient of their tweets and a movie poster collage was made based on the winning entries.

"Bollywood has always worked well in engaging with Indians on any medium,"

says Prasad, explaining the reasons behind using this movie-related hashtag. "The idea has been working well with us as we associate ourselves with fashion and fashion icons. Earlier, we have launched similar campaigns on social which were modelled around Bollywood and its stars and got good results," adds Prasad.

In December 2012, Myntra launched a photograph contest on Twitter to celebrate actor Govinda's birthday. In that campaign, users were asked to share their pictures sporting a Govinda-like look with the hashtag #chichifashion.

As a matter of practice, Myntra has been extending its TVCs on Twitter with similar contests. In October, Myntra launched #whatsyourexcuse contest to support its TV ad about its 30-day return policy. For this activity, Myntra asked people to send their reasons to return, on Twitter, using the hashtag #whatsyourexcuse.

Explaining Myntra's social media marketing strategy, Prasad says that Myntra uses platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as channels to acquire new customers and increase engagement with the brand. Besides, social media is also used as an enabler and amplifier of various functions like marketing, customer support, content marketing, product and to a certain extent, even sales, than as a separate entity, or just as media.

According to a case study done by Facebook in January 2013, Myntra saw a 75 per cent increase in total website traffic from its Facebook presence in the last six months. The study added that the company's Facebook advertisements now generate around 25 per cent of its overall revenue. Founded in 2007, Myntra is an online portal in the fashion and lifestyle space and ranked among the top three e-commerce companies in India.