Meesho Mounts First Massive Celebrity-Led Festive Campaign

Despite the recent slip-up by one of its celebrity endorser Sourav Ganguly’s team on social media which ended up prematurely revealing Meesho’s massive campaign, the team is all set to capture user attention this festive season.

The internet commerce company has mounted a massive festive sale campaign much ahead of its competition to capture user attention across Bharat. The celebrity-led campaign features nine celebrities including Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Rohit Sharma, Rashmika Mandana, Kapil Sharma, Trisha Krishnan, Karthi Sivakumar, Ram Charan and Sourav Ganguly.

Addressing the faux pas

In an exclusive conversation with Storyboard18, Megha Agwarwal, CXO User Growth, says that the company is deploying a social media strategy to break festive advertising clutter.

One of the first strategies was to release a Blockbuster poster with celebrities to create intrigue and speculation whether it is a movie or ad campaign which led to conversation and buzz. Of course, until the Sourav Ganguly tweet mishap happened which the company handled in a smart tongue-in-cheek fashion.

“I’m not going to reveal whether it was a goof-up or not. I love the conversations that are happening in social media. Our objective was to create a lot of conversations around this campaign and I feel the outcome is exactly where we wanted it to be,” says Agarwal.

About the campaign

Created by advertising agency Sideways, the two television spots announce the annual festive Mega Blockbuster Sale: ‘Saal ke Sabse Kam Daam‘ from September 23 to 27. The campaign aims to position Meesho as a local marketplace where users can access a variety of products from across the country. The idea was to create a visual world representing celebrities as sellers of various categories, spreading awareness about the company’s unique value proposition of quality products at the lowest prices.

Agarwal says the idea of the campaign came from their mission statement which is to democratise internet commerce both from suppliers and users perspective.

Going deeper and more regional

Agarwal says the intent behind hiring a good mix of national and regional celebrities is to have a pan-India presence.

Meesho recently strengthened its regional foothold by adding eight new languages on the app — Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia.

With approximately 68 million active product listings across 30 categories, Meesho says that while fashion will remain its mainstay, the company is expecting a strong surge in home & kitchen, furnishings, consumer electronics and accessories during the festive season.

Apart from mass media, there will be a strong influencer marketing leg as well which involves multiple micro and nano influencers who will increase the consideration set of the platform.

Meesho says that it currently has over seven lakh active sellers and it expects the seller base to increase by 4X this festive season.

“This will translate into a deeper assortment on the platform. This will also lead to good discounts from these suppliers. We are hoping for a very strong festive season supplied from the inputs from suppliers,” notes Agarwal.

Agency speak

On the objective of the campaign, Abhijit Avasthi, Founder, Sideways says that the campaign has been devised to address the key barrier in the adoption of e-commerce by mass India — a sense of distance and ‘not-for-me’ feeling.

“Hence, the campaign exhibits the feel of a local market. The look, feel, flavour builds affinity and familiarity. I believe using India’s biggest celebrities as sellers who welcome customers to Meesho’s ‘Mega Blockbuster Sale’ will help break clutter as it has not been done before, and makes them endearing too,” he says.

The festive season is a massive opportunity for e-commerce players that hinge on aggressive discounts and interesting advertising to capture consumer attention.

In 2021, e-commerce players clocked a gross merchandise value of $9.2 billion, an increase of 23 percent compared to 2020, according to data released by research firm RedSeer.