Diwali season is the Black Friday for brands in India. Over the last decade, e-commerce giants with their big budgets take over print during this time to promote their annual sales. So much so that India’s #1 newspaper frequently splits their daily in two to have two separate front pages full of ads. In fact, most newspapers during sale season will feature 10+ pages of catalogue-style full-page discount advertising, not news. And why wouldn’t they? Indians spend over 2.5 trillion rupees shopping during this one week.

We’re Cleartrip, a not-so-big travel booking app, that obviously can’t compete with these budgets. But what we can do is hijack this boring media pattern (now a blind spot for consumers) and turn it into an advantage. Our task this sale season was to get Indians to realise that a good 'Diwali deal' can also be found in travel, instead of just things.

Brand Impact:

Brand consideration went up by 52%

Brand preference went up by 42%

469% uptick in number of mentions

2038% uptick in the number of conversations

#5 app on the app playstore ahead of all other travel apps

Organic App installs went up 2.6X

App featured in top 10 for the first time in Android & iOS

Trending at #5 on Twitter on the day of release

15 Mn Reach

10Mn + reach using earned PR

52% Increase in brand queries - Overtook competitor and #1 player MakeMyTrip for the first time

Business Impact:

Baseline shifted by 27% vs Pre-sale period

Total Airline sales Growth up by 27%

Domestic Flights up 24%

International Flights growth at 46%

25K Direct Scans worth 15Mn INR

Normally, an advert on page-11 of the Times of India after 6 consecutive pages of e-commerce giants shouting their offers on the biggest sale day of the year would be considered wasted money. But winning amidst sale season clutter needed a guerrilla approach.

Our 11th page advert with a QR code called on readers to use our web app to scan every other offer or discount they saw from brands on the same day’s first 6 pages and turn them into similarly priced travel offers on Cleartrip.

This print hijack was accessed by QR but powered by AI & ML. Instead of training machine-learning to recognize products, we got it to recognize prices and discount percentages. The algorithm powering this was fed 5-years of past festive season advertising to recognize print and pricing formats typically used in sale advertising. Thus, turning every e-commerce print ad into an interactive Cleartrip ad.

Indians are used to seeing big e-commerce giants take full front pages for discount advertising, sometimes 10+ pages during peak sale seasons. These ads only shout the biggest offers and discounts, so much so that it has become a blind spot for the readers. Precisely why our clever hijack of all other brand offers on the Times Of India became a sensational talking point even on social media, increasing the number of conversations by 2038% with a reach of 15Mn.

The Indian consumer’s wallet doesn’t get bigger suddenly during Diwali. What they’re hunting for however during sale season are simply the best deals to spend on regardless of category. A decade worth of seasonal e-commerce sales & advertising have ensured India’s habit of ‘saving big expenses for Diwali discounts’. This behaviour was key to getting them to consider a travel sale when they’re typically used to spending on things.