Future Group targets online rivals in new campaign

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Oct 13, 2016

Future Group, the nation’s largest retail chain, is getting ready to launch a fresh offensive against e-commerce rivals, with an advertising campaign that will draw parallels between online buying and a long distance relationship.

“There is a perception that online pricing is better compared to physical stores but it’s not the case anymore. We need to make consumers aware of this fact,” Kishore Biyani, the group’s chief executive told Economic Times. “We are doing a lot of technology led innovation and have partnered with Facebook for this initiative.”

This is the second instance where the Future Group is engaging in comparative advertising against online rivals, which have been grabbing market share by discounting products. It comes just ahead of the peak Diwali sales and after the festival sale events by the big three online companies — Flipkart, Amazon India and Snapdeal.

The ad campaign is part of the Future Group's latest two-day event, Book Online Pay Offline or BOPO that will begin next week. Under this, consumers can book products at EZone’s online portal for Rs 1,000 and pay the remaining at its stores later. If a customer doesn’t like a product booked online, the money will be converted into a gift voucher that can be used for buying any other product.

“It comes with an insight of our customer where they say ‘side mein rakh dena (keep on the side)’ when they are not sure about a product, but at the same time don’t want to let go the price-offer on the merchandise,” Biyani said.

Earlier this year, Biyani, who has never made his disdain for ecommerce rivals a secret, launched a series of ads that use wordplay — Flip the Cart, Snap the Deal and Amaz-Off — to target the three top marketplaces.