Diwali is India's biggest festival. Not only in terms of bringing family and friends together, but also with respect to shopping. So much so that the entire e-commerce industry sees a huge increase in overall revenue.
During Diwali last year, Amazon India ran one of its biggest Sales till date – The Great Indian Diwali Sale. This Sale was promoted heavily via the television commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL-hF9Kfy6Y) 'Dhadaam Dhudoom' (an onomatopoeic phrase that means 'big bang') that set the context well for a festival that stands for lights, sounds, smells, sweets, fireworks, happiness, and a hope for unending prosperity.
The objective of our digital campaign was twofold.
1. To stay true to the 'Dhadaam Dhudoom' feeling the television commercial had left our audiences with, by emulating the sound and fury of Diwali celebrations on social.
2. To ensure that Amazon was consistently the most engaged brand channel across 10 days and as a result make the connection between Diwali shopping and shopping on Amazon indelible.
Celebrating Diwali isn't just a question of one meal with family / friends. It involves days of house cleaning, decorating your home, tailoring new clothes, home-making sweets, and shop, shop, shopping for everything from cars to jewellery.
During the days leading up to Diwali, there is an undeniable energy in the country. People are in high spirits. They enjoy the 'busyness' that surrounds the festivities. And prepare for the big holiday with much anticipation.
In short, they're game!
Our idea was to tap into the energy of our audience with a series of high impact activities that would keep them engaged with Amazon's Twitter handle @AmazonIN. And here's how we did it.
1. GIF Response: We responded to conversations about the 'Dhadaam Dhudoom' TV commercial, not in text but in GIFs. And our audience loved it.
2. Wishes from our Fulfilment Centre: A series of behind-the-scenes videos gave our audience a peak into the efficiency and joy that goes into making them smile.
3. Matchbox Mania: We unveiled our best deals in the most Diwali manner, through interesting matchbox GIFs.
4. Emoji Clues: A playful way of engaging with our younger audience, encouraging them to decipher our midnight deals.
5. Bollywood Wishlists: We got our audience to create unorthodox Amazon Wishlists for famous characters from Bollywood's biggest hits.
6. Housie: When families get together on Diwali, they eventually indulge in fun and games. And Housie is a big favourite. So we recreated Housie on Twitter by throwing random numbers at our audience every half hour and asking them to match their Amazon Cart value to it, driving them to browse through our product catalogues building familiarity with our site.
7. #NotGoingHome: Everyone wants to go home for Diwali. People plan their Diwali holiday with family months in advance. For some, Diwali is an excuse to take 'annual leave' and get away from work for long. Today however, high-pressure jobs and work travel keep people from their loved ones. We wanted to, in some small way, raise the spirits of those unable to go home for Diwali. We used the Spriklr Listening Suite to identify 72 people on Twitter who were unable to join their family and friends for Diwali, and then surprised them with a fabulous Amazon care package. Further, 8 of the people #NotGoingHome were visited and handed their care packages personally by Amazon employees. Needless to say, the response to our small gesture was heart-warming. In each case we were welcomed in true Indian style – with open hearts and a plate full of goodies.
An incredible end to the Amazon Great Indian Diwali Sale.
Or so we thought.
Until we saw the results of our campaign.
Our Amazon Diwali digital campaign created…
a. 687 million impressions (With 106 million impression for Housie alone!)
b. 120,000 mentions on social media
c. 65 hours of trending on Twitter across 10 days
d. 16,000 Indians engaged
Who said people get tired of engaging with a brand?
