While consumer spends on V-Day on the rise, brand spends see a dip: Experts
With brands tapping into every possible event and occasion to engage with their TGs, occasions like Valentine’s Day have become huge marketing opportunities today. It is no surprise that businesses launched their best strategic marketing campaigns targeted at capturing both the hearts and wallets of shoppers this Valentine’s Day as well.
Titan Company has shared consumer insights gathered via their loyalty programme – Titan Encircle, which has a base of over 10 million customers. As per the data report, Valentine’s Day is becoming a major shopping event over the past few years and Titan is seeing a steady growth in customers across years. Competition is steep when it comes to buying gifts for loved ones, and most retailers and organisations are putting forward their best efforts to make sure they win big on Valentine’s Day, regardless of industry. Data suggests that there is an increase in customers 2 days prior to Valentine’s Day and nearly 40 per cent of the customers resort to last minute shopping, that is, buying on Valentine’s Day itself.
According to, Kuruvilla Markose, Chief Digital Officer, Titan Company, “There is a change in the way Indians shop during Valentine’s Day and we have seen new trends in last few years. Impulse purchase of gifts across our categories has seen a big rise amongst young consumers as they have easier access to online platforms, online marketplaces, etc. This has helped us, as India’s leading retailer, to roll out products and select relevant channels to make shopping a memorable experience on the eve of Valentine’s Day.”
Demographics, lifestyle patterns, social patterns and economic conditions have contributed to the shift of consumer’s attitudes. Men buy more gifts than women, true to all segments. According to the data from Titan, there is a clear skew in Valentine’s shopping in the younger generation. Every keyword tells a story into the human psyche, most common gifts include confectionery, flowers, accessories and jewellery, clothing and greeting cards.
Over the years, Mondelez India has built and led the Valentine’s Day occasion through its concerted marketing efforts and gifting innovations. Prashant Peres, Director – Marketing (Chocolates), Mondelez India, remarked, “Consumers today are looking beyond products and services, they are looking at experiences that can create memories. This insight resulted in the development of our new offering of the special edition Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk with a heart pop. It urges consumers to not hold back from expressing their love this Valentine’s Day, resonating well especially with young adults.”
To strengthen the communications efforts, the brand rolled out a TVC supported by a 360 degree marketing campaign that included strategic TV associations1, digital, outdoor activations, exciting in-store activations and samplings. “We also looked at integrating with popular movie and music channels. On the outdoor marketing front, we adopted a comprehensive strategy, wherein the brand had outdoor installations and billboards across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. They say coffee and chocolates are a great combo during a date, hence as part of our campaign we also strategically associated with Café Coffee Day. On the digital front, other than creative activations on our social media handles, we partnered with Snapchat to further leverage the heart pop feature via Snapchat filters,” Peres added.
Speaking more on the company’s efforts, Abhishek Ahluwalia, Head – eCommerce, India, MondelÄ“z International, said, “We also have been making strides in e-commerce, creating new shopping opportunities through personalisation and gifting platforms. This year, we have has gone a notch ahead to develop a unique gifting innovation, which probably is one-of-its-kind in the industry. The company designed a gifting innovation – ‘Cadbury Joy Deliveries AR (Augmented Reality) enabled Gift Box’ – and rolled out a limited edition pack exclusively on e-commerce. The AR enabled gift box comes with 2 large Silk Limited Edition Valentine Chocolate bars (250 g each). Once a person ordered a box to be sent over to the receiver, the latter could experience the box coming alive with animation and virtual personalised messaging, powered by the Blippar App.”
Shopholix decided to ‘Spread the Love’ with several Valentine’s Booths across malls in Mumbai from February 13 to 18, 2018, where people are encouraged to share love with everyone, with gift vouchers for all the participants. Shopholix also digitally reached out to their audience and asked people to Share Love. There are gift vouchers of Rs 10,000 and more for the top 3 people who spread the maximum love.
Shedding more light on the campaign, Hemant Upadhyay, Co-founder & CEO, Shopholix, said, “Valentine’s Day is not just for couples. It is, in fact, more about expressing your love for anyone special in your life, be it your parents, your siblings, or even your friends. Shopping, for most, is usually a group activity done with people they are close to, and Shopholix aimed to make the experience even more delightful during the Valentine’s week. We are delighted to associate with a leading fashion brand like Spykar for the campaign and are sure that the offer will make the season of love extra special for our consumers.”
At the same time, Upadhyay said that compared to the previous years, the ad spends on Valentine’s Day this year had been significantly lower.
Not to be left behind, Payback and its partners planned a host of Valentine’s Day offers for its members. Speaking about these offers, Ramakant Khandelwal, CMO, Payback India, said, “At Payback Voucherworld, members enjoyed discounts up to 25 per cent on instant vouchers from 100+ leading brands like Marks & Spencer, United Colors of Benetton, Vero Moda, Van Heusen, Jack & Jones, Only, Charles and Keith, Levi’s, Woodland, Bata, Archies, Pizza Hut, Baskin Robbins and more. Not just the old tradition of gifting, but members could plan a holiday with Ezeego and get up to 800 Bonus Points, propose a trip with Goomo and get up to 100 per cent points back on flight booking, plan a movie date with Bookmyshow with a ‘Buy 1 Get 1 Free’ offer on select ICICI Bank Cards while earning reward points from both partners. They could also treat their partner by booking a spa session at O2 Spa or purchase a special gift for their loved ones from Archies using their reward points.”
“The idea of Valentine’s Day is to cherish your relationships and celebrate togetherness. Our offers cut across all age groups and relationship dynamics,” he added.
While he refrained from divulging marketing spend numbers, Khandelwal said, “We focussed on primarily digital channels to reach out to our members using email, SMS, website, app and social media for an integrated approach as well as having our partners leverage their own communication channels to drive across the message.”
Sharing his insights on Valentine’s Day marketing efforts, Mihir Mehta, Associate Vice President - Branding & Affiliate Marketing, iProspect India, said, “What I have seen in the last 2-3 years is that brands haven’t stopped advertising completely on Valentine’s Day; but they have gone more product centric. For instance, brands like Zomato run campaigns for their customers. So, they will not reach out for a new set of audiences, but aim for the existing customers.”
While brand spends around Valentine’s Day differ from year to year, Mehta noted that over the years brands have stopped doing event centric campaigns. He added, “They will be interested in doing campaigns on new trending topics rather than concentrating on older topics. Initially, brands used to run campaigns for the entire Valentine’s week, but these kind of events have gone down nowadays.”
While brand spends around Valentine’s Day differ from year to year, Mehta noted that over the years brands have stopped doing event centric campaigns. He added, “They will be interested in doing campaigns on new trending topics rather than concentrating on older topics. Initially, brands used to run campaigns for the entire Valentine’s week, but these kind of events have gone down nowadays.”
Mehta further said, “Marketing activities vary from brands to brands. Brands like Cadbury will always be present on Valentine’s Day and so will all other chocolate brands. Though many activity centric brands like Nearbuy do campaigns for Valentine’s Day, they are more notification centric. So, to keep engaged with their old audience and to attract new customers, they do communication which is Valentine’s centric – such as some offers like 20 per cent extra cash back or 10 per cent discount, etc. Their target audience is mainly in the 15-24 age group.”
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