Absolutely, No Kidding!
When small talks big, the consumer is likely to sit up and take notice
Turn your antenna on and listen to the Lilliputians talking like grown-ups. They are not kids, they are seasoned adults. It’s not a parody; its realistic adult talk and the message cloaked in this idea, is noteworthy – if a child can do it, so can you. So can anyone, for that matter.
The use of kids is very metaphorical in Flipkart commercials. It takes the phobia out of the tech world. Online purchase of books and goods begins to appear like a child’s play. Only, the proposition isn’t sold so directly. The child actors go about their humdrum existence, making inane banter, so the message about the simplicity of an online retail model is delivered very discreetly. Their recent campaign “No Kidding No worries” – takes the cake – little-ly and literally!
Isn’t that cool? Their child artists’ gear, outfits, mannerisms, attitudes doesn’t come across as sham. It’s not even remotely funny. On the contrary, it’s dead serious. And it works those limited 30 seconds because it’s so unobtrusive.
The bottom line?
The brand communicates and how!
Since its launch in Oct 2007, Flipkart has been positioned as India’s answer to Amazon. The brainchild of Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (the duo are incidentally not related, despite the common surname), the retail platform has become hugely successful, particularly due to the popularity of their book section.
If you haven’t peeped into it already, We suggest you do and discover what a close match it is to an actual library feel and ambience. The book browsing experience at Flipkart is actually no different from a brick and mortar bookstore. And the results of this uncanny similarity between real and virtual show in the company’s balance sheet. Book sales continue to contribute to around 80% to Flipkart’s total revenue. There is a lesson in this for all web designers.
We happened to saunter through the site once and found it so much less complex than navigating the Amazon site and we are not being jingoistic or sarcastic!
The technical word for this kind of a design that is informed totally by user experience, user expectations and comfort factor is ‘ergonomics,’ but at Litmus, we prefer the word ‘simplicity.’
In my opinion this kind of a design template springs from the gut – knowing instinctively what the consumer wants, where and how he wants it and delivering it to him, without frusterating false turns and frills.
The second major factor going for Flipkart is their communication that as we already mentioned remains a cut-apart. One look and you know the campaign belongs to a series and that the series belongs to Flipkart – that’s differentiation. They also keep on adding new features to the site and improving back-end operations, which implies an actual value transfer to the consumer.
Small wonder that in just three years, Flipkart’s revenue has grown to Rs 750 crore (Their estimate, not ours) and it’s expected to grow to Rs 4,500 crore by 2015. They have also just received their second round of funding. Starting with two employees and two suppliers, Flipkart’s head count now exceeds 4500 and they have close to 500 suppliers. That’s impressive.
Although communications has played a big role in this kind of growth and popularity, we will also credit other measures, such as a gradual expansion of their product portfolio – cell phones, laptops, computers, cameras, games, music, audio players, TV’s, healthcare products, washing machines – you name it, they have it! As one wag put it, “There are some things you can’t buy online… For everything else, there’s Flipkart!”
Along the way, customer satisfaction has been the corner stone of the online retailer’s dizzying success. With Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Google Ad-words, their official FB page has nine lakh ‘likes’ (Can’t tell how many are genuine, though J).
Their story has gone viral and been viewed by almost a million viewers on YouTube within two weeks of launch, streaming on channels not owned by Flipkart or the ad agency – that’s genuine appreciation.
