Exclusive | Nissan got amazing response at GOSF 2013: Tipnis

Nissan Motor India Private Ltd. (NMIPL), a 100% subsidiary of Nissan Motor Co. Ltd recently participated in the exciting Great Online Shopping Festival 2013 (GOSF) organized by Google India. This initiative followed the recent announcement that Nissan will retail its cars online.

For records, The Great Online Shopping Festival is organized by Google India in conjunction with major players in e-commerce, local, classified and online travel sites. This year, Google had roped in around 250 retailers from across the country for the festival. One can shop for a wealth of items including shoes, clothes, jewellery, apparel, cars, travel packages, books, kids wear and of course gadgets and computer peripherals.

The tie-up with GOSF leveraged the high traffic platform of Google in order to increase the purchase intent during the festival season for customers visiting www.nissan.in/gosf over the three days (December 11th to 13th 2013). Customers could book their cars by making payments through an online gateway and by making use of a credit card or debit card. Post bookings, the customer would be contacted by the respective dealership for the remaining formalities and car delivery.

Adgully caught up with Nitish Tipnis, Director, Marketing, Hover Automotive India to know more about the tie-up.

Tipnis stated that the rationale behind the tie-up remained simple - growth and reach of the digital medium. "This tie-up was yet another expression of our commitment to market our vehicles uniquely. Partnering with Google helped our association with the digital medium to enable brand Nissan and our dealers provide easier and convenient ways to purchase cars in India. This partnership strengthens and widens the customer base to the entire internet audience including smart-phone users which is the largest traffic generator", he said.

According to him, this will not only help in marketing and building the reach of their products but will also enhance and encourage the online automotive business market too. He also said that there is no doubt about the fact that before buying a car, a large percentage of people spend a lot of time online for researching about cars. Gone are the days when people used hop car stores to dig up relative information. Today people would directly go the company store they want and just book the desired car!
"For us at Nissan digital platform has always been and will remain the focus since our consumers are much more evolved today than earlier”, he said.

In terms of response, Tipnis told us that with GOSF getting bigger and better, Nissan has also got amazing response this time. "During the last two days we have had huge traffic on our site which shows the growing online car industry too."

Nissan GOSF offer page is user friendly; while the moment you click on Nissan, you are directly connected to the Nissan website where you are exhibited to offers across products on the page directly, thus saving time. Consumers also compare products especially when they buy a car. So a Nissan vehicle on the GOSF website had a link by a third party (Cardekho) to compare models with other competition models. The comparative spec across models is by a third party, which is credible and trusted information. "We also had an instant call back assistance on the booking page. The customer needed to add contact details and he would get a call back in 10 minutes," Tipnis added.

Nissan delivers cutting-edge technology, distinctive design and a rewarding experience to all its customers. In India, the line of vehicles offered by Nissan includes mid-sized sedan ‘Sunny’, Nissan Evalia (MPV), compact hatchback Nissan ‘Micra’, newly launched compact premium SUV Nissan ‘Terrano’, luxury sedan Nissan ‘Teana’, SUV Nissan ‘X-Trail’ and iconic sports car Nissan ‘370Z’.

On speaking about competition, he said, "As compared to competition, we are offering the best schemes as well as convenience and complete product information to the consumer to make his purchase simple. The uniqueness of this initiative is exemplified by the fact that customers can book their cars by making initial payments through online gateway and by making use of a debit card & credit card or net banking."

This year the second edition of GOSF is looked to be much bigger, with what started out as a 24 hour affair last year on December 12, 2012. This year, the campaign was a three-day long festival starting from December 11, 2013. The festival was promoted mainly through digital advertising on Automotive and General Interest Websites as well as Social Media tools such as Facebook and Twitter.