In an interview with EVENTFAQS' Rachel George, Sachin Kapur, CMO, Crazeal.com, discusses BTL and e-commerce, what Crazeal has to offer, and how it differs from other deal websites.

What differentiates Crazeal.com from the other deal sites of today? How does it ensure the BTL connect that e-commerce lacks?

The e-commerce industry today has turned into a number-chasing business with discounts and offers becoming the order of the day. But what differentiates Crazeal from others is the way we twist the concept of discounts by offering experiences to customers, rather than just deals. Also, the nature of our business is such that there is a lack of face-to-face consumer connect. Therefore, our team is constantly looking at creating innovative BTL initiatives to interact and engage with the customers.

Please highlight the importance of BTL / experiential marketing to Crazeal.

We would like to call ourselves a lifestyle discovery engine offering quality experiences to customers rather than just discounts. Therefore, all our deals and marketing efforts are skewed towards creating irresistible consumer experiences by way of direct engagement. We have been carrying out our BTL activities in association with PVR and Café Coffee Day, as well as some 5-star hotels in Delhi. Through these BTL and experiential marketing activities, we are gathering the cream of consumers that come onto our site and it has resulted in 40-45 per cent repeat purchases.

What is the rationale behind the special movie screenings and tie-ups with Coffee Day? How does this tie into Crazeal's marketing objectives?

We recently rolled out a nationwide experiential marketing campaign where we partnered with multiple cinemas across nine cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Chandigarh and Pune) for a special screening of the movie ‘The Dark Knight Rises'. Over 3,500 tickets were said to have been sold in less than 30 hours. The special screening involved showcasing our new advertising campaign ‘Who can Resist', along with the team manning the ticket booking stalls, addressing the entire crowd before the start of the movie and steering on-ground activities to give them a flavour of Crazeal's personalized services. Multiple on-ground touch points were also created to increase its brand presence and engage consumers in a fun way.

Another BTL activation that we did was the tie-up with 25 Café Coffee Day outlets in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad to reach out to the young target group. Anyone walking into a CCD outlet was given a menu card that said that if you texted your e-mail id to a number, you would get a mobile voucher that entitled you to a free cappuccino. The cappuccino had Crazeal branding on top that was created with a stencil. The entire objective of this experiential campaign was to surprise the customer and offer them a unique coffee experience.

Please elaborate on the ‘Who Can Resist' campaign. What are the activities associated with the same?

We have embarked on a long-running ‘Who can resist' ad campaign that highlights our deal offerings across categories in a funny way. These ads aren't another run of the mill kind of communication, but uses humorous and quirky themes to break the clutter of advertising done by other players in this industry. The objective of the ‘Who Can Resist' ads is not a direct promotion of what we do, but to become a memorable brand in the consumer's mind. We launched the ads on social media platforms few months back and recently screened them at multiple cinema houses.

Please elaborate on the marketing strategy that Crazeal plans to adopt to increase its consumer connect. How is this going to be achieved?

As an online brand, it is important for us to focus our marketing energies in that space. Marketing for us is to have a pull rather than a push strategy and, above all, it has to be experience-based. We are not in the market to build valuation but are here for value creation. You will never see us spending foolishly on just building the brand. We believe that the brand is built in the mind of the consumer when he/she transacts on your site. Therefore, currently we are working extensively to increase awareness levels and build on word-of-mouth through a mix of both BTL and ATL activities.