After print, Amazon plans to hit prime time TV with IPL

Amazon made a quiet entry into the Indian ecommerce market. However, that is not how it plans to launch its first TV ad campaign. In tune with its tremendous growth in just ten months, it will enter the world of commercial television ads with a bang. And there cannot be a better launch pad for Amazon’s first TV ad campaign than the soon-to-start IPL season.

Today, IPL is the most popular sporting/entertainment event that has cricket-smitten Indians reworking their schedules and setting aside appointments to not miss out on an that game-changing sixer or wicket. The world’s largest retailer Amazon has once again proved to be iconic by choosing to be the official on-air associate sponsor for IPL that will be telecast on Sony Set Max this season.

IPL had around 215 million viewers last year, an increase of around 164 million viewers from the previous year. With potential customers from all around the country watching the event, Amazon hopes to entice and appeal to them about their trusted online shopping experience.

Amazon has already entered print medium with full page newspaper ads.

Other major ecommerce players like Flipkart and Snapdeal already do commercial advertisements with regular TV ads in various channels and air-times. Earlier, Amazon has advertised in mainstream media for Junglee.com (an online shopping comparison service it owns) but this TV ad during IPL will mark its entry into advertising through mainstream media.

Amazon has already alerted its associated sellers to keep their inventory and selection up-to-date to be ready to handle the increase in sales and order volume assuming good conversion rates due to the IPL ad.

Amazon has recently launched Fire TV globally, which is similar to Apple TV. Fire TV is a tony box that plugs into High Definition TV. This is in addition to its video-on-demand service. Amazon will eventually expand these services to other countries, including India also. However, that will take some time as majority of Indian consumers are not yet used to paying for TV content.

Opportunity for sellers with Amazon’s IPL ad

• Ride Amazon’s wave of advertising and incoming traffic by listing products on Amazon.
• Promote special IPL merchandise (may need permission for this from Amazon) and cash in on the IPL fever of cricket-crazy Indians as they would definitely purchase merchandise to display their team loyalties.