Amazon, Flipkart add star power to make their brands a hit

NEW DELHI: The battle for customer acquisition has taken a fresh turn with the top online marketplace companies Amazon and Flipkart roping in A-lister celebrities to push their brands. For the first time since it began operations in India, Amazon has roped in Amitabh Bachchan, Alia Bhatt and Salman Khan among a few others to promote Amazon Prime Video and its upcoming Prime Day. Rival Flipkart named Ranbir Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor as its brand ambassadors last month.

Amazon’s promotion for both Prime Video and Prime Day, titled ‘keep that smile on this Prime Day’, also features Rani Mukerji, Varun Dhawan and Salman Khan urging viewers to ‘keep smiling on Prime Day’ and watch Prime Video.

Amazon India, which is set to kick off its Prime Day today (July 16-17), has introduced a virtual reality experience which includes setting up ‘experience zones’ in malls across metro cities where the screens will also flash the videos featuring celebrities like Bachchan, promoting it. India is the fastest growing market for Prime globally with over a few million Prime subscribers. The number of Prime customers in India has doubled in the last 12 months.

Flipkart has rolled out a film, each featuring Ranbir and Shraddha Kapoor offering ‘kidults’ fashion advice.

Flipkart chief marketing officer Shoumyan Biswas said: “Bollywood celebrities are one of the leading inspirations for fashion and so it was natural to associate with two biggest fashion icons as brand ambassadors for Flipkart Fashion. The campaign reiterates Flipkart as a fashion destination.”

Endorsing Flipkart Fashion, the campaign is now being rolled out across television, digital, print and outdoor medium.

Vijay Subramaniam, chief executive of talent management firm Kwan, the agency representing Ranbir Kapoor, said: “Ecommerce companies have fairly sizeable media budgets, compared to say, a traditional consumerfacing company, and hence the campaigns are more visible.”

Kapoor, one of the highest paid celebrities in the country, is learnt to have inked a multi-year endorsement deal Flipkart.

E-commerce companies have been by and large using celebrities to promote sales events. For example, Bollywood stars Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone separately co-own brands with Myntra. Last year, lakhs of Myntra customers received recorded phone calls from Padukone and Roshan pitching Myntra’s flagship ‘end of reason sale.’ Both Padukone and Roshan sell their respective celebrity brands of All About You and HRX and Myntra has been using the duo extensively to pitch products via television ads and social media — and calling consumers with recorded ads.

“Hi this is Deepika Padukone. Get ready to shop All About You,” the recorded message of the actress said promoting her brand during Myntra’s sale last year.