Flipkart Namibia deal: This story is not about hitting fours and sixes on the cricket field, but about hitting such a ‘googly’ in the world of business, which has surprised even the biggest stalwarts. It is often seen that whenever a big occasion like the World Cup comes, companies open their safes to get their name printed on the jersey of the Indian team. In this game of crores and billions, everyone just wants to find their place. But this time Flipkart made such a googly, which is being called a masterstroke in marketing language. He did not choose a spot where there was already a lot of crowd, but took the hand of a team which no one expected.
Bengaluru’s famous e-commerce company Flipkart decided to sponsor the Namibian team instead of the Indian team in this T20 World Cup. It may sound a bit strange as to why an Indian company is betting on a small team like Namibia? But the real game lies in the data and intelligence hidden behind it. While companies like Apollo Tires paid a huge amount of Rs 579 crore to sponsor Team India, Flipkart signed a deal to become the title sponsor of Namibia for just Rs 1 crore. This amount is only 0.17 percent of the amount spent on the Indian team.
Campaign became successful, got 25 crore views
The most special thing about this deal is that Namibia is in the same Group-A which includes teams like India, Pakistan and America. Prateek Arun Shetty, Vice President (Growth and Marketing), Flipkart, believes that they knew that whenever there was a match between India and Pakistan, the audience would remain glued to the TV. In such a situation, when Flipkart’s logo will shine on Namibia’s jersey, it will be seen by millions of people. Shetty says, “Our aim was to become the most talked about brand in this tournament and we did just that. So far our campaign has received more than 25 crore views on social media and about 5,500 creators and meme pages have personally posted about us.”
This is called smart planning!
Experts from the world of marketing have also become convinced of this ‘smart planning’ of Flipkart. Yasin Hamidani, director of Media Care Brand Solutions, says that this is a kind of hacking in the world of advertising. They achieved that recognition at a very low cost, which big brands usually get by spending crores of rupees. This is exactly what Karnataka’s dairy brand ‘Nandini’ did some time ago with teams from Scotland and Ireland.
Anirudh Sreedharan, co-founder of Hashfame, calls this a great way to avoid premium tax. He says that without paying crores of taxes, Flipkart achieved the same national broadcast and audience that big sponsors get.
Interestingly, this is not the time for big sales for e-commerce companies, so making huge investments could have been risky. Flipkart also made its presence felt in this off-season. On February 12, when people saw Namibia’s jersey on TV, a discussion started on the internet about what Flipkart was doing there. This curiosity made the company the most talked about brand on social media.