A target of 700 crores during the 2 week period from Dec 13th '08 to Jan 4th '09, this was how much the Future Group had anticipated. It's true that Big Bazaar is one of the best Marketing success in India, but this festival took it a tad too far.
The number of press ads released were unprecedented. 'Times of India' carried a separate supplement with only Future Group ads, with every page & line screaming discounts. If these didn't get to the consumers, I don't know what will.
e-Zone, Pantaloons, Food Bazaar, Big Bazaar, Collections,Central etc all had % offs. But after a point the Retailer forgot about his customer. I strongly believe in maintaining a distinct identity that each retail brand should maintain because the primary base of customers visiting each of them are different. Future Group created 'Central' and its success was riding on the fact that it was a lifestyle fashion brand. The money rolled in as future group placed it's brands like 'John Miller' near much bigger players and earned higher margins on the same.
Now consumers have started associating 'Central' with the Future Group, whose primary success has been 'Big Bazaar', a discount retail brand, because of the umbrella advertising by Future Group as a whole.
From the Retailer's perspective, creating a property like the 'Indian Shopping festival' would have been a monumental task, whereby the back-ends of various other retailers would have been linked.
This similar to the 'Future group' Credit card which is years ahead of its time, but a concept that would surely pick up in the coming years as consumers realize actual hands-on benefits. This is nothing but credit from the retailer through an indirect route.
Future group may not be the best process oriented organization according to other retailers in the market who might comment that a time will come when Future Group's bubble might burst because of inventory, obsolescence etc, but the fact remains: no one else has managed to hit it big in Retail, at least from the customer's perspective.
They still remain the most flexible retail organization in India. Let us see if the trade-off works.
