Thursday, July 12, 2007

Is stealing users a good strategy?

Zapak seems to have caught my fancy. I'm sure everyone would've seen the irritating (and offensive) "As fast as 1-2-3" ad campaign by Zapak. Close on the heels of that, I notice another web campaign from Zapak:



The first frame of the animated GIF has a purple Spidey holding up a placard that reads, "jumping_jack@tediffmail.com" (emphasis mine, apparent spelling mistake - theirs).



The second frame has the same purple Spidey holding up a placard with "spider.man@zapak.com" written on it. Why the dot, I wonder. Wasn't it about "reclaiming your name"? It's Spiderman, not Spider-dot-man!

I just don't get it. Zapak started off as an online gaming company with excellent advertising and marketing campaigns. I remember telling everyone about the "Get to the next level" campaign I saw in Adlabs loos. Or the "Your race begins here" campaign on escalators. Then it went off to focus on girls in gaming.

And then all of a sudden - free email? Which gets delivered instantaneously? Which is as easy as "login, compose, send"? I mean, wow! No one though of that before!

And then it wants people to reclaim their names on a website called Zapak.com? What would anyone like to give out on a CV - nanda_saurabh@gmail.com OR saurabh.nanda@zapak.com? And how long can you go along with this strategy? It's self defeating. You can have only one amit.agarwal@zapak.com or amit.singh@zapak.com. Your USP goes out of the window as soon as you have enough number of people signing up.

If you can't innovate at least don't try to steal Rediffmail's users. They have a phrase for this - "splitting the pie" or "dividing the pie"...

(Oh, btw, they've also launched a YouTube clone now - Zapak.tv)

3 comments:

  1. dood you are obsessed by Zapak!

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  2. Apparently, Zapak thinks the email market is "underserved" in India and that free email is a good customer acquisition tool for their "main" gaming business.

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  3. They failed when they chose that name for 12 year olds. They tried to come back with the start play online stuff, but it was again games directed for those mentally challenged. Tediffmail.. lol priceless.

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