GOSF 2014: Great Online Shopping Festival completely ignores Facebook in all promotions
There has been decent amount of buzz online with the GOSF, Great Online Shopping Festival. Most of this buzz has been created or amplified by almost every single online brand that is consumer facing participating in India’s version of ‘Cyber Monday’. We all saw the super price sensitive Indian internet audience went crazy during the many “Diwali Dhamaka” sales by top online brands. There is no doubting that GOSF this year is going to be an even bigger success specially when compared to last year Google and it’s partners have a bigger playground to play with.
The Internet in India took more than a decade to move from 10 million to 100 million and 3 years from 100 to 200 million. However, it took only a year to move from 200 to 300 million users. Clearly, Internet is mainstream in India today. – Source
Although, the internet penetration is a tiny % of the entire population but in sheer absolute numbers, the number of internet users will surpass that of United States, and become the 2nd country in the world to have the most number of internet users behind China.
What’s in it for Google?
Why does Google take part in this entire hullabaloo? Precisely because the only job that Google has in India is to develop the category, promote internet usage. Google’s major advertising revenue, I am guessing comes from e-commerce brands. The more people in India become open to the idea of online shopping, the more beneficial it becomes for Google in the long run. Google’s entire marketing strategy has revolved around promoting internet usage. Whether it is getting Chandni Chowk Online, The Google Reunion Ad, The Chrome – Power of Web Campaign or GOSF.
The aim is clear for the folks in India working at Google, get more people and businesses online.
What has been? – A look a GOSF 2013
Here are some of the major highlights of went on with GOSF 2013
- The GOSF 2013 website crashed minutes after the sale went live. Google, after multiple apology tweets managed to put on a good show for the next 2 days recovering from a glitch filled Day 1.
- Contrary to popular opinion that internet is restricted to metros, last year, more than half of purchases were made from tier-2 cities.
- Due to huge demand and response the shopping festival was extended by a day, which is highly unlikely to happen this time is my assumption as Google would have ensured various load testing checks after the Flipkart debacle and it would also go against their communication strategy of “72 hours of crazy”.
- The e-commerce companies had a field day on those 3 days with many experiencing a major bump in their traffic and other metrics. Precisely the reason Snapdeal and other likes are beefing up their delivery systems anticipating the demand in the next few days.
- Snapdeal.com sold 5 pairs of shoes, 4 mobile phones, 2 watches, kitchen appliances and bedsheets and 1 saree, perfume and a pair of sunglasses every minute during the sale. Source
- Myntra.com sold 1,00,000 fashion products in 24 hours with 3.5 times jump in revenue on first day. Source
Who sold how much last year?
What IS? GOSF 2014 – What is Google trying to say?
Google and all it’s approximately 450 partner brands participating in providing the 3 days of shopping frenzy to eager Indian internet audience are doing everything possible to milk this shopping festival. This is similar to what Flipkart did when they went all out with promoting it as the “Biggest Online Sale” India has ever seen. “India mai pehli baar” was their message everywhere.
Let’s have a quick look at what Google is trying to say on different channels to make sure that people know about the shopping festival.
#72HoursOfCrazy
The campaign hits it spot on with the perfect usage of “hashtag”. The hashtag catches the trend, speaks about the campaign and has an easy recall which meets all the criteria for it to be buzzing for the next 3 days.
I did not particularly liked the execution of the strategy with the below video primarily because a mass campaign targeted at anyone and everyone had to be a little more direct and clear in it’s communication. The craziness is well captured in the video but the important points like the website url or the dates or deals or partnered brands have missed out from it.
The ad however grows on you, I love the production value along with the music. “Crazy Shopping. Crazy Fun” is an amazing positioning to have for an online shopping festival, however could have been more massy.
If you take, for example, the other GOSF campaigns which have been particularly direct in what they want to say. I don’t think GOSF has reached the stage yet where people don’t need to be told what it’s about.
2012 GOSF Campaign – The one day when all your dreams will come true
2013 GOSF Campaign – No matter who you are, there’s a deal for you
Although, the current campaign, in terms of messaging is way better than the last 2 years, the execution of the previous 2, in my opinion was better.
GOSF & TVF
Youtube has practically made TVF the pioneers of online entertainment in India. Youtube on its own does every bit to promote them and there was no reason that Google, to promote their online shopping festival will not approach TVF. The video is funny and drives the point home of the upcoming online shopping festival. For the social media, anyway there is no better thing than to see someone sound foolish on camera, hence the video works.
TVF FAQs on Online Shopping
Youtube Masthead
Google used its own high impact propery on Youtube to promote GOSF and it’s probably one of the better use of the Youtube mast head inventory I have ever seen till date.
The banner is
- Attractive
- Interactive
- Creative
Hook, Line & Clincher method of Internet advertising at it’s best.
Hook – An Internet Full of Deals. Great Copy. Time Sensitive. Attractive campaign name and a well designed banner.
Frame 1
Line – Play the game. Keep me engaged by the best interactive banner I have seen.
Frame 2
Clincher – A strong call to action. A brilliant line to end. If only they could have embedded a “score sharing” mechanism to leverage the same on social media
Frame 3
They had to promote the event on Twitter however I did not find a single post about GOSF on Facebook from Google India.
They are taking this Google Plus vs Facebook war quite seriously when practically no one else is.
However, they have a series of posts and double-digit +1s on those posts on their Google India, Google+ page. Check here.
Finally, The Microsite, www.gosf.in
The website www.gosf.in, is a very well made website. It will have it’s testing time when the traffic starts to come in starting midnight 10th December. But on the looks of it, it’s an interesting website, a mix of advanced and fun UI elements, games to interact and engage the traffic from pre launch activities.
They had interesting sections on the website. Interactive games, 14 minutes of free shopping counting down 14 days till 10th December, Setting reminders so you don’t forget when it starts and of course the plethora of online brands partnered with them under categories.
The 299 corner
Under the What’s New tab, Google created a 299 corner which is their own version of the dollar store and every product in it was worth Rs. 299. Which gives a taste of what to expect.
The Game
It’s a no brainer game just to engage the user before he/she drops out. The important thing to note again over here is when I wanted to share my results, there was absolutely no option to share it on Facebook. I would love to speak to someone from Google, who can tell me what the view of the company on Facebook is because it actually means a lot ignoring a medium as popular as Facebook in India.
Facebook was missing in the share results
What to expect from GOSF 2014?
- A bit of downtime, technical glitches and website crashes, followed by extreme twitter outrage
- Disappointment as what you want would already be out of stock
- Disappointment again as you are expecting 72HoursOfCrazy but the entire excitement would quite possibly go down in 72 seconds if you don’t find anything.
- Ray of hope, as there are almost 450 online brands giving you something or the other and there is a high possibility that the GOSF would not be totally disappointing for you.
Happy Shopping! Go Crazy!
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