Last week we launched our new service ‘Flipkart Assured‘, a service offering that assures our customers of Quality Products and Fast Delivery. The service offering has been really successful. Lakhs of customers have tried Flipkart Assured since the launch and the feedback has been encouraging. You must have also seen the Flipkart Assured advertising campaign, featuring the famous “Flipkart kids”, which went live simultaneously and won love and appreciation from our consumers. The marketing and advertising fraternity also received it with positive comments.
Now, while we’re delighted with the positive response, we are aware that we may have unintentionally hurt the sentiments of our Gorkha brothers and sisters through the depiction of one of the characters in the advertisement, namely the security guard.
In that regard, we wish to share our point of view.
Foremost, we’re proud of and grateful to the Gorkha community. They symbolize valor, reliability, integrity and loyalty. Many members of the Gorkha community continue to represent our nation in the highest echelons of their chosen fields – be it administration, sports, defense, academics, entertainment, etc. Some of them have also chosen this profession of a security guard.
A security guard is someone we trust with our life. Every day. We trust our security guards to let the right people into our homes. We trust them with our children’s safety when they’re outdoors. We trust them to ensure that we sleep safe every night. The campaign drew from these codes of assurance to drive the key proposition of Flipkart Assured. It is with this intent that the character which the child portrayed was chosen to play the part.
Over the last week we have diligently pored over every comment and post on social and offline channels and discussed the issue with our customers to understand their concerns in depth. While most agreed to the freedom of creative expression and choice of characters, we discovered that the primary angst arose from the use of the Khukuri insignia (a respected and cherished symbol of pride and valor), and the tone of voice used by the character.
In line with the feedback, we have updated the advertisements to remove the depiction of the Khukuri and suitably changed the voices of the characters. The films have been uploaded on our social channels and will be progressively updated across all other channels in next few days.
Flipkart has always been an inclusive brand for people from all walks of life. We truly strive not to be the cause for anyone’s angst but be the reason for their happiness, irrespective of their ethnicity, nationality and strength of the community. We are fond of reflecting this in the stories we narrate and the characters that we bring alive. Our intent has never been to stereotype or typecast any community and hurt their sentiments in any manner. Rather, it has always been to celebrate the diversity and nuances that are unique to us as Indians.
We hope that our Gorkha friends will appreciate the updated advertisements, take note of the intent and extent of changes, and above all enjoy the innocent humor of the communication.
