Flipkart and Myntra ramp up TV advertising

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Jan 8, 2019

Flipkart and its fashion arm Myntra have greatly increased their television advertising following the business’ Walmart acquisition last summer. The businesses have also heavily promoted their sales.

From August 8 to December 21, 2018, Myntra aired adverts on TV 26,316 times compared to 21,600 times in the same time period in 2017.

Flipkart also aired TV adverts 155,983 times in the August 8 to December 21 period in 2018 compared to 84,770 in the 2017 time period. Flipkart’s phone business PhonePe also increased TV adverts from none at all in 2017 to 50,862 in the 2018 time period, as reported by ET Bureau. August 8 was the date when the Competition Commission of India (CCI) formally authorised Walmart’s 77 percent acquisition of Flipkart and its subsidiaries.

As well as promoting the brands on TV, Flipkart and Myntra have hosted a number of large sale events such as Myntra and Jabong’s recent End of Reason Sale (EORS) where sales surged by 700 percent. Last year also saw the most promotion yet for the Black Friday sale weekend, an American import that cemented itself in the Indian retail calendar in 2018. 

"The battle of ecommerce is a battle not about balance sheet but about market share and post-acquisition when they are flush with funds; they have the right to protect market share," Saurabh Varma, the CEO of Publicis Communications India told ET Bureau.

However, US-owned businesses like Flipkart and Amazon India have been accused of deep discounting by organisations such as the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which claims that their overbearing presence in the market is harming both Indian businesses and consumers.