Facebook to launch an online shopping festival this Raksha Bandhan

The festival season is yet to start in India but social networking site Facebook has already planned how to tap potential customers through its database. It is going to launch a shopping festival named Tied Together on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan.

The plan involves setting up a website in association with media agency conglomerate GroupM between August 12 and August 29, the day of the festival, reported the Economic Times.

According to Facebook's pitch note, brands can "unlock the power of social media that can reach 10 crore potential customers through this event."

The social networking site would use its subscriber base and social networking platform to drive traffic to the shopping site.

Participating companies will have to pay a fee that will be shared by Facebook, GroupM and other media agencies.

Facebook, which has 11.2 crore users in India, is reported to be looking for a title sponsor at an asking rate of Rs 3 crore and a principal sponsor at a similar rate besides associate sponsors for Rs 1.5 crore each.

According to a media planner, online shopping festivals have become a popular trend in India, especially with the rise in the number of eCommerce companies, which are driving the growth of online shopping in India.

Facebook should be considered as another media vehicle which has a huge database that can be utilised for commercial purposes.

Last year, Google organized a shopping festival along with with GroupM and Amazon called the Grand Diwali Mela. In 2013, Google launched the Great Online Shopping Festival. Earlier this year, Google held the Great Indian Travel Festival (GITF) in association with media agency conglomerate IPG Mediabrands.

In July, Magicbricks joined hands with GroupM and Google to launch a property festival.

"Companies like Amazon, Flipkart and other eCommerce companies can host an online festival on their own website. But companies like Google and Facebook need to create a new one to host a shopping festival. The idea is to create online intellectual properties (IP) and to make them annual events," said another media planner.

Google and Facebook charge advertisers on a "per click" basis that ranges between 50 paise to Rs 100 and Rs 2 to Rs 20, respectively, "depending on the customer-targeting options that they choose," said the planner.

(Image: Reuters)