Two of India’s biggest startups really missed the mark on Good Friday

A Myntra screengrab.

Eye-popping sales and deals of the week are pretty standard marketing gimmicks for retailers across the world, online or offline.

In India, where ecommerce is seeing breakneck growth, taking up any opportunity to promote sales has become a pretty standard deal. There are Diwali sales, Christmas deals, regional celebrations , and in true American fashion, even back to school campaigns.

Over the weekend, two Indian biggies – Snapdeal and Myntra, owned by Flipkart – pushed the envelope so far, it all fell apart. They used Good Friday, the day observed to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, as promotional material.

Not surprisingly, customers lashed out online.

I can’t believe that @snapdeal sent me a mail saying that “It’s a really really Good Friday”. Religious sentiments be damned. #BrandFail

— Sherwin Mascarenhas (@Sherwinator_27) March 25, 2016

“We know it’s a Good Friday when you get 50-80 percent off,” said a Myntra campaign.

Snapdeal went along similar lines, saying it was a “really really good Friday,” peddling a flat forty percent off campaign on the website.

Snapdeal has since apologized for the faux pas, but Myntra just told Tech In Asia it had no comments.

That’s telling, given how a marketing campaign in these companies would have to be vetted and approved by an entire team before it went live, and couldn’t simply be a slip by one person.

“There is pressure of increasing sales on all retailers, and it’s not just on online ones. But this purely a reflection of the ineptness of the marketing department at these companies,” chairman of management consulting firm TechnopakAdvisors told Tech in Asia.