Collateral Damage: Snapdeal suffers due to mistaken association with Indian boycott of Snapchat
Indian ecommerce firm Snapdeal has become mistakenly embroiled in a controversy surrounding similarly named Snapchat.
Snapdeal faced unintentional boycotting in India after being mistaken for Snapchat
Over the weekend, social media momentum had gathered after Snapchat CEO Evan Speigel allegedly said that he had no desire to expand in to countries such as India because the app was for "rich people".
The comments offended many Indians and led many of them to uninstall Snapchat. Snapchat's rating on the App Store dropped to a "single star" the day after #boycottsnapchat trended the whole day on Twitter.
However, what followed may be amusing to some, but not so much for Snapdeal. People confused Snapchat with Snapdeal and started uninstalling it.
Sorry @snapdeal #boycottsnapchat #snapchatnotsnapdeal pic.twitter.com/EdvAAtVJY3
— Disha Banerjee (@BanDisha11) April 16, 2017
They criticised Snapdeal on the google play store as well and gave it one star. They even reached out to Kunal Bahl, CEO of Snapdeal, after which he clarified from his official twitter account. He tweeted, "Ppl asking us to make a statement that @snapdeal is not @snapchat was possibly the last thing I thought I would ever need to do."
@thetanmay Thanks bud. Ppl asking us to make a statement that @snapdeal is not @snapchat was possibly the last thing I thought I would ever need to do. — Kunal Bahl (@1kunalbahl) April 16, 2017
People also started #SnapchatNotSnapdeal on Twitter. Hopefully, the confusion will wear off soon but unfortunately, the damage has been done.
After spending Rs.200 crores on branding @snapdeal must be wondering today why people can't make out it's not @Snapchat
— Mahesh Murthy (@maheshmurthy) April 16, 2017
We feel you, Snapdeal.#Snapchat pic.twitter.com/KF8LvduNSP — FilterCopy (@filtercopy) April 16, 2017