Adgully Exclusive | Online media will be our prime focus this year: GKSF's Rathan Kelkar

The Grand Kerala Shopping Festival is back with a bang this year and will be held from the 1st of December 2011 to 15th of January 2012. The festival first started on 2007, and the aforementioned 15 days since then has been celebrated as Grand Kerala Shopping Festival and ever since it has become an annual shopping festival. The event lasts for 46 days and the very special fact about GKSF is that the entire Kerala participates in the festival.

Through the years the festival has been conducted by Tourism Department in co-ordination with the Industries & Commerce Department, Finance Department and Local Self Government Department to fulfill the objective. Through this shopping festival, the Kerala Government intends to transform the State into a hub for international shopping experience and there by "Launch Shopping Tourism" in the state. In the process, the brand image of Kerala Tourism would go a long way to help upgrade the infrastructure of traditional marketing centres in Kerala.

The organizers are well set with get show on road of the version-5 of the Biggest ever Shopping Extravaganza, the "Grand Kerala Shopping Festival" with novel initiatives and exciting prizes to the shops and shoppers.

The festival is full of mega-events put forth by entertainers from around the world. Moreover there are exciting prices from any GKSF registered shop, it entitles consumers to a scratch and win, lucky draw coupons, which can win them gold coins and various other exciting prizes. And the most exciting is the glitter of the 101 Kgs Gold prizes that consumers can bag that adds an irresistible sheen to the entire festival. And as an added benefit the festival has added features like online shopping, VAT refund, and co-opt advertisement.

The festival is going to house around 6000 merchant establishments and the key sectors focused on are going to be automobile, textile, craft etc. Last year GKSF had a total sale of Rs. 2,200 crores and the team this year is expecting a 25% jump.

Talking to Adgully, Dr. Rathan Kelkar, Director, GKSF, says, "We have brands who have pan India presence participating with us. Last year we had brands like Jet Airways, Prestige, World Gold Council, Sony, Mahindra, Future Group (Big Bazaar), Cholayil Group and Bhima Jewellers being associated with us. This year we are looking at focusing consumers from outside the state. Since now GKSF has become a brand within the state and amongst the Kerala community beyond Kerala, we want to reach out to various states across the country."

Kelkar further adds that the sponsorship response has been very good this year and that the line-up is going to be very exciting for the consumers.

The team this year is also looking at collaborating with big hospitality names in the state to give out offers to visitors of the festival. Kelkar says that the team is still in talks with some of the potential partners.

The festival is also going to be reaching out to the curious consumers outside the state of Kerala through a website (https://www.shoppingfestival.in) and a WAP site. Kelkar says, "The website is very user-friendly and the content is regularly updated. We are also looking at having a presence across the social networking sites. E-Payment gateway will be added soon to the website. We are also in talks with Google to tie-up with them so as to enable higher traffic to the site."

So why is gold the prime attraction?

Kelkar quickly adds, "Because Kerala is crazy about gold and out of the total gold consumption in India, 16% itself is consumed in Kerala. And now with the gold rate rising it is a good source of investment for everybody."

Since the festival's focus is primarily going to be to get consumers from outside Kerala this time, the promotional activties are going to be across channels and online media is going to be a prime focus.

"This year we are looking at some kind of reality show, scrollers or jingles planned around the festival. We have created a few guidelines for the media and it is upon them how would they like to be associated with us, " Kelkar says.

While signing off he points out that this year GKSF wants to encourage partcipation from across the country and that the strong online media presence will enable the global Kerala community to shop and be a part of the splendid festival too. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]