J. Walter Thompson India addresses fakes in proactive digital campaign for Askmebazaar.com

While we all love our e-commerce platforms for shopping for our favourite brands, there are a large percentage of people who intentionally buy fake products to just save on some money, which has given rise to a whole new parallel market. In the wake of this harsh reality J. Walter Thompson India puts out a proactive digital campaign for its client Askmebazaar.com, ‘Get Real’ that assures its clients of getting genuine products and encourages people to buy real brands.

Released at a time when the entire country has been engaging in shopping online during the festive season, the 5 ad YouTube campaign that is addressed to both online buyers and sellers, aims to weed out fake products from the online e-commerce ecosystem in India.

Conceptualized by J. Walter Thompson, all five films have been directed by Sundeep Sehgal, Sr. Creative Director, J. Walter Thompson Delhi. Talking of this first of its kind anti-fake initiative, Sehgal said, “We wanted to tell people that buying fakes is the most ludicrous thing to do. Fakes are inferior in quality. They don’t come with guarantees. And of course, there’s no return policy. In other words, fakes are like bad jokes.”

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“We juxtaposed the idea with the observation – fake products have a very slight spelling change from the originals and deliberately created those ‘bad jokes’. The response from the online community was very positive. In fact, people started sending us their bad jokes which we converted into social media posts and posters,” he added.

Fakes have spawned some hilarious pop culture and memes on funny fakes – Dolce & Banana, Crocodile brand, etc. There are memes on how to pronounce foreign brands correctly, childhood jokes on alternative meanings and insinuations of brand names. All this created fodder for a creative campaign that uses the allegory of bad jokes to egg on a mass consumer rejection of fakes in the category, to set the standard in quality, with an engaging and dedicated digital campaign.

Concerned with the growing fakes market in the online space, Askmebazaar had decided to initiate a zero tolerance policy against fake products about three months ago. After a series of stringent measures over that period, the company has achieved near total success in eradicating this menace from their platform.

Manav Sethi, group CMO & head, digital strategy, Askmebazaar, said, “The Indian luxury counterfeit market is approximately worth Rs. 2,500 crore, accounting to 5-6 per cent of the total luxury market of the country. With this campaign, we aim to send a robust message to our customers that Askmebazaar is committed to upholding the standards and reliability of products, and our high-quality, customer-focused reputation.”

The campaign was created to set the standard in authenticity via genuine branded goods, a new narrative for a brand-conscious Indian audience, and a unique promise of no fake – a first for the giant e-com business in India.

Credits –

Post Production: Niraj Khanvazir & Raythones.Inc Team