Guess who stole the thunder from Flipkart on its big day, rather, Big Billion Day? Troll, industry parlance for digital ambush, took away some of the gloss and sheen from Flipkart’s high decibel campaign for its Big Billion Day online sale.
Users who typed www.bigbillionday.com were redirected to rival online marketplace www.amazon.in, leading to industry-wide speculation that the global online retailing giant Amazon was behind this ambush marketing exercise. On its homepage, Amazon India was offering its own Diwali Dhamaka deals for bargain hunters. Though, Amazon may have been one of the beneficiaries of the hype surrounding Flipkart’s campaign, Amazon India executives denied having any role in the episode. A spokesperson for Amazon India told BusinessLine , “We have not registered that domain.”
Interestingly, ‘#bigbillionday’ was one of the trending topics on Twitter, with most users pointing to ambush marketing.
“Guess who registered http://bigbillionday.com Ha ha !! it was amazon,” alleged Samit Chandana. A Twitter user by the name Dorkstar said:
“For people who think Amazon trolled Flipkart with http://BigBillionDay.com , reality might not be that poetic.”
However, a spokesperson for Flipkart did not comment on the development.
Instead, Flipkart said that it managed to achieve its 24-hour sales target of $100-million gross merchandise value in just 24 hours, despite the technical glitches that allegedly prevented many from completing transactions.