Baazee.com: Selling the e-trading concept

E-trading portal Baazee.com’s television campaign is an attempt to educate Indian consumers about the benefits of online auctioning

When viewed in the light of the dotcom bust - where ad spends have vaporized faster than morning dew - Baazee.com's extensive use of national-level television as one of the prime media for its branding exercise could come across as sheer indulgence. But Baazee doesn't think so.

The reasoning at Baazee is that as e-trading and online auctioning are budding concepts in India, the communication requires treading the same ground as would any other nascent category or concept. That for the product proposition to percolate to consumers, it is imperative that e-trading, as a concept, first gets seeded. And the belief is that television is best suited for this. And, of course, Baazee also wants to establish the first-mover advantage.

One thing is clear. Through its commercials, Baazee is doing a pretty decent job of selling the basic benefits of e-trading to the consumer. Take the first of the two commercials for the brand - the ‘bus stop' spot. Here you have a simple story of a boy who sees this girl waiting at a bus stop outside his house. Seeing an opportunity to give the girl a lift, the boy quickly decides to get his hands on a bike. He logs on to Baazee.com, and quickly sells off possessions such as an old tape recorder and a grandfather clock… checking every now and then to see whether the girl is still at the bus stop. With the money he has made, he uses the site to buy a bike, and hurriedly drives towards the bus stop… jumping a traffic signal. Hauled up by a cop, the poor guy watches in dismay as the girl runs out of patience, hires a rickshaw and departs.

"This ad required that Baazee.com be established as the ‘alternative marketplace', where selling and buying was made easy," says a Baazee spokesperson. "While the ad relied on the execution to communicate the ease with which buying and selling was possible, the core communication to consumers was ‘sell the things you do not need to buy the things you do need'. It also focused on both buying and selling, and talked of both second-hand and brand-new products."

The second commercial for the brand - the ‘neighbours' ad - is a winner. The ad is about this old couple scandalized by the frantic screaming of a man and a woman (‘more'… ‘higher'… ‘oh yes, yes'…) emanating from the neighbouring apartment across the wall. As it turns out, the young husband and wife in the neighbouring flat are actually selling things on Baazee, and can't contain their excitement on seeing the bids go up. They are, of course, quite oblivious to the kind of attention their shouting is drawing next door.

"This commercial is focused on motivating the consumer on why one should sell on Baazee.com," says a spokesperson for Contract Advertising. "What consumers will experience when they come onto the site - the auction process - which ensures that the products they sell will get the highest price possible. It builds in the excitement of the bidding process, and the thrill of fetching a price one cannot dream of in the offline world." Due credit has to be given to Contract for stripping the brief to the very basic, and presenting ‘excitement around online bidding' in such an interesting manner.

For Baazee, generating interest in the concept of e-trading is paramount. For the portal doesn't see any of the rival dotcoms (and there are quite a few around) as its biggest competitor - the challenge is in beating the offline market. "Baazee aims to be the alternative marketplace providing the auction mechanism as a means to enable sellers and buyers to get the price they require," says the Baazee spokesperson. "While this holds good for new products (B2C on the site), the offline market provides less benefits to a consumer who wants to sell second-hand products (C2C). Here, the benefits a consumer experiences, and the possibility of reaching a suitable buyer at a suitable price is far greater on Baazee.com than any other offline medium. Right now offline C2C is limited to word-of-mouth and, maybe, the classifieds."

At the same time, Baazee claims that it has "pulled far ahead of the game" among the online C2C offerings. And the hope is that this campaign will not only build salience, but also put more distance between it and its rivals.

Agency : Contract Advertising, Mumbai

The Team:

Creative : Parveez Shaikh, Sheetal Parekh

Servicing : Rajiv Sabnis, Rahul Kantharia, Sandhya Menon

Media: Sai Nagesh, Sandeep Ranade, Namrata Balwani, Krishna Kumar

Filmmaker : Abhiney Deo

Production House : Ramesh Deo Productions

Baazee.com Marketing Team : Gautam Thakar, Sharmila Martis, Sagar Paranjpe

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