BigFlix.com appoints Pankaj Chandra as chief lead, online business

Chandra will be responsible for boosting traffic on BigFlix .com and the online marketing initiatives of the movie rental company

BigFlix.com, a movie rental company owned by Reliance Big Entertainment, has appointed Pankaj Chandra as chief lead for its online business. He will report to Kamal Gianchandani, chief operating officer, BigFlix.com.

The company follows a subscription model to acquire consumers, who then order movies on rent. Apart from the online presence, the company also sells its subscription offers through 112 retail stores in India.

Speaking to afaqs!, Chandra says, “BigFlix.com has 1,00,000 subscribers and 80 per cent of them are acquired through our retail stores, while 20 per cent are acquired through our website.” He adds, “My role will be to boost the traffic on BigFlix.com in order to acquire more customers through the online medium.”

Chandra will also handle the online marketing functions of the company. He revealed that BigFlix will start scouting for a digital agency soon to plan out and execute its online marketing campaign, which will include search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimisation (SEO) and display advertising to drive more people to the website. An offline campaign comprising of print and outdoor advertisements will also begin in June 2009.

Apart from starting a marketing campaign, the company will also opt for tie ups with prominent portals and companies to use their database for e-mail marketing or push special subscription offers to their employees.

Chandra has about 15 years of experience in media, e-commerce and marketing. He has worked with the Times Group for 11 years, during which he was involved in Times FM (now Radio Mirchi) and later, was part of the team which started Indiatimes.com in 1998. He looked after the shopping section of Indiatimes.com as the category head and was also responsible for setting up the online arm of Planet M.

In 2005, he moved to Sify.com, where he was responsible for the e-commerce arm of the portal. He joined Kuoni, a travel management company, in 2006 and managed the e-commerce function there as well.