Exclusive | Social media plays a vital role for us: Homeshop18's Vikrant Khanna

In line with its ‘Shopping Makes Me Happy’ mantra, HomeShop18, today announced the launch of its 360 degree brand campaign with the rollout of its television commercial and a high voltage digital campaign.

The TVC series that goes on air explores the witty world of Sunny and Billy – two animated protagonists, who represent Homeshop18 and the joy of shopping that comes with it. The campaign conceptualized by Creativeland Asia aims to strike an instant connect with the viewers with its effective storyline, sheer simplicity, humour and captivating jingle – ‘Shopping Makes Me Happy”. The TVC went on air last week on all major TV channels across a mix of general entertainment, news, sports and movie channels. The social media and digital activation of the campaign spearheaded by Mindshift Interactive aims to target the ever growing internet population with its fascinating viral content that is both youthful as well as, has a cosmopolitan charm.

Adgully caught up with Vikrant Khanna, CMO, HomeShop18 to know more about the new campaign.

Speaking about the campaign he said, “The brand campaign reflects HomeShop18’s ideology of ‘Shopping makes me happy,’ which is not just a tagline but a universal insight that resonates with people across the world. At HomeShop18, we believe that we are best poised to appropriate this position since we are the only ones that offer shopping via our three digital commerce platforms of TV, web & mobile app – each aligned to a relevant consumer segment in the Indian market”.

The 45-second HomeShop18 TVC released features Billy, the father cat and Sunny, the son cat, sitting across a table armed with their charm and persuasiveness. They get into a dialogue with the audience where they share the benefits of shopping on HomeShop18’s TV channel, website or mobile app. The cats inform about the various product categories and ease of shopping at India’s leading digital commerce platform, pretty much like a shop owner would, in a pleasant, witty and humble manner.

Giving us an overview of HomeShop18’s innovative brand marketing strategy to elevate the brand, Khanna said, “Innovation is in our DNA! Our offerings, customer relationship management, value proposition, three-screen presence on TV-Web-Mobile and technology make us stand apart from the competition.”

The TVC campaign has a unique and fresh idea and breaks away from the clutter. The idea is to build top of the mind recall for HomeShop18 as the most trusted shopping platform for customers across age and income groups. The TVC builds in a direct connect with today’s consumer as it establishes an emotional connect appealing to their desire for shopping. “With the TVC, HomeShop18 highlights its contribution to the excitement around shopping in today’s world,” he added.

Additionally, he believes that social media presence plays an important role in gaining the attention of the millennial customer. “At HomeShop18, our digital team strives to stay on top of what’s hot and what’s not, what’s working for specific product categories, and how to make the best impact for our customers. We have a strong presence across social media channels like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. and we make it a point to differentiate and refresh the content so that our customers get a variety of information. For this brand campaign, we have developed a micro-site-shoppingmakesmehappy.com for engagement with its customers as well as, latest on Billy and Sunny. HomeShop18 has innovated with its campaign spread by being the first Indian brand to use Whatsapp to reach out to its customers through viral posts and videos”, Khanna adds.

The TVC will run for first two months with an optimum media mix on television, radio and internet in order to clutch maximum viewer’s attention. The commercial is released across a set of channels including English, Hindi, Regionals, business news channels, music, movie, infotainment and GEC.

CreativeLand Asia is the agency that worked to create this brand campaign. The brief given to the team was simple – to make HomeShop18 the most preferred remote shopping destination. “We are the only shopping brand present across Web, TV and Mobile platforms and through the TVC we wanted to highlight the ease and unparalleled shopping experience offered to customers. We wanted to reach out to the dramatically opposite audiences spread across the pyramid with a unified voice, personality and message. Following the customer insight, we struck cord with the core idea of ‘Shopping makes me happy’ that emerged as one of those truisms that exist today. Shopping Today, is considered a mood-uplifting recreational activity that spreads positivity. This brief was followed and the breakthrough campaign was created for HomeShop18,” Khanna said on asking about the brief given to the agency.

In tandem with the new brand architecture, the campaign, targeted at value shoppers comprises of 5 unique advertisements with each film based on different life insights with a pinch of humour. The multiple engaging films show father cat and son cat as protagonists who woo audiences with the skill and wit of traditional Indian shopkeepers.