November 2018

As we embark towards the end of yet another year, leaving Diwali madness behind, the year-end festivities have only begun. With Christmas and New Year's lined up, followed by the Cricket World Cup next year, it's time for brands to end the year with a bang, and gear up for some desi cricket madness.

It's time to fuel up your offers with our new product on the block - petrol recharge. With the cricket season hitting us soon, drive engagement with customized mobile games for your brand.

For our guest section, we're 'In Conversation with' Mr. Binit Kumar - Trade Marketing Head at Zydus Wellness. Our special thanks to Binit, for being generous with his time and insights.

In our blog roundup, we've performed an Exorcism on 'Salesy' Promotions where we reveal a few horrors from the industry and highlight six watch outs for brands. And, to get you warmed up for the upcoming cricket season (only 6 months left!), we've shared a few opening ideas and insights to wrap up this newsletter issue.

Cheers to a wonderful 2018 and to an exciting 2019 ahead!

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Services in Spotlight

 Loyalty Programs

New-age, omni-channel loyalty that goes beyond points... We now deliver app and web based programs integrated with wallets, rewards, automation and gamification.

 Campaign Management

If you have a large scale promotion or contest coming up, trust the experts with a track record of 5000+ campaigns executed seamlessly and completely in-house.


New Products

 Promotional Mobile Games

Fresh out of BigCity ovens, we now develop mobile-friendly games in-house; aligned with the brand, perfect for engaging millions of consumers in a shot.

 Free Fuel

What could add more value to your offer than free fuel? Taking your brand miles ahead, this new reward is ideal for a TG of any demographic.

 Family Picnic

What's better than spending time with your loved ones for free! Offer customers a day out with family at vetted resorts PAN India.

 Ola Vouchers

Giveaway cab vouchers to your tech. savvy, urban dwelling audience, who're bound to use and value a free ride.


In Conversation With

Binit Kumar, Head of Trade Marketing at Zydus Wellness Ltd.

Binit has an experience of 9+ years with some of the top FMCG companies including P&G, Coty and Zydus Wellness. He has also worked across multiple channels (GT/MT/Hair Salon GTM), and geographies (urban/rural). Currently, Binit is leading the Trade Marketing Function for Consumer Products Division & Nutralite Division of ZydusWellness Iconic Brands : SugarFree, EverYuth & Nutralite.

1. What are the trends you see for the year-end festive season (Christmas, New Year) in your sector?

CUSTO”MY”ZATION & SIMPLEXITY are two trends that are catching up this festive season. Customers are looking for personalized promotions/gifts for self and others. With attention span dropping from 12 to 8 seconds, customers are looking for items which are simple enough to pick up without many conditions.

2. What would be your mantra before beginning a new promotional campaign, something you consider as a recipe for success?

As a company we are trying to innovate with promotions which are not the regular price offs but offering the customer more value for money. Today, customers are looking for promotions which offer instant redemption and don’t have too many layers of activity for them. A promotion which is of a high perceived value, something which can be measured, less logistically intensive and engages well with the stakeholders is the ideal combination for success.

3. The fact that there are so many players in the industry at the moment, is there any difference in the kind of promotions you run vs the others in the market? Like your USP to run promotions?

Lately the concept of Webrooming (Pep checking products on web and buying in store) and Showrooming (Pep checking products in store and buying online) is the norm for consumers. While designing a promo as a company, we are trying to synchronize the consumer's transaction experience with us across mediums.

4. In a sector like yours, constant bombarding of promotional offers is done towards customers. How do you think your brand stands out in that jungle?

We are slowly moving from continuous price discounts to emotional concept sell. Today the discounted price has become the regular price and the promotion is really not helping in driving consumption but pulling forward the regular purchase. For e.g. Nutralite, a well-known butter substitute was regularly on discount earlier... we're now moving the benefit to consumer in the form of Free Health Check Up for Cholesterol which engages the customer to the brand ethos and makes them loyal.

5. With the program that you ran with us, we did a retailer campaign. How do you think the retailers are accepting of different kinds of rewards as compared to discounts?

Retailers today are looking for faster mode of redemption in the form of cash, on bill discount or something nearly similar of utility and value. PayTm Cashback offer helped in driving redemption and engagement with the brand.

6. Could you tell us a little bit about the recent promotion you ran with us from your brand's point of view and what was the value add? How was your experience working with us?

This was the first time we ran a promo using Paytm as the incentive. The brief was to activate the 'Grocery Channel' which is not natural for our products. The excitement and novelty of the discount through PayTm has excited the trade and sales force too. Although Paytm was not applicable in some parts of the country, it fulfilled most parts of our coverage requirement. We are very happy to partner with Big City which went out of the way to help make this program successful for us.


Our Recent Campaigns

M&M On-pack Consumer Promotion

Mars was looking to increase off takes on M&M with an on-pack offer at MTOs. Keeping the TG in mind - metro-dwelling adults and children alike, we came up with an offer where customers received a Bookmyshow gift voucher worth Rs.100 with every 100g pack.

Olay Navratri Spend-based Consumer Promotion

Olay wanted to gratify their TG, that is, women above 30 years of age during Navratri. Given the festive occasion, we came up with a spend-based offer where on purchase of Olay products worth Rs.2000+, customers could choose a free salon service from a manicure, pedicure or haircut.

Harpic Trade Promotion

Reckitt Benckiser was looking for an offer to incentivize their retailer network for Harpic. Befitting the TG that values utility and instant gratification, we created an offer where retailers received an instant mobile recharge by sending a simple SMS on every purchase of Rs.400 and above.

Unlimited A/W Launch Consumer Promotion

Arvind’s value-fashion brand, Unlimited was looking to increase sales during their AW'18 launch. In line with the objective, we came up with an offer where on purchase of Rs.2499+, customers could choose their assured reward. Curated rewards included coffee card, movie tickets, BOGO lunch and more.


Blog Roundup

Cricket World Cup - Insights & Ideas

​Is your brand padded up and ready?

May 30th'19 marks the beginning of the most-awaited cricket extravaganza - The ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, watched by an estimated 400 million fans. With the World Cup kicking off in less than seven months, is your brand ready for one of the world’s biggest sporting event... Read More

Exorcism of a 'Salesy' Promotion

​6 Watch outs for Brands before running Sales Promos

Having been in this field in India for the last 10+ years, we’ve picked up more than a few lessons along the way. The most natural course of action for us now would be to write about ‘How to do a Sales Promotion’. But lately we’ve come across a few horrors that need to be addressed... Read More

Bank Marketing in India - Challenges & Opportunities

Banks mainly run promotions for three reasons:to acquire customers, activate dormant customers and engage existing customers. Marketing of BFSI products has been a challenge because of RBI guidelines in terms of what banks can offer as rewards. So, banks are limited by budget in what they can do... Read More

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