Has Aamir Khan logged on to Snapdeal as its brand ambassador?

India's leading emarketplace operator Snapdeal has roped in bollywood actor Aamir Khan who turned 50 on March 14, 2015 as its brand ambassador, industry sources privy to the development told dna. 

In fact, Khan, who starred in bollywood's highest-grossing Indian satirical science fiction comedy for 2014 called PK that reportedly earned Rs 600 crore worldwide, has already got on board and an advertising firm has been roped in to shoot campaigns that are likely to hit the screens and online very soon.   

"Aamir Khan has accepted the offer and commercials have been shot already," said sources adding that, "The campaigns are expected to go on air in the next few weeks."

When contacted, a Snapdeal spokesperson said, "This is a speculation and as a policy we do not comment on speculations."

Queries sent to Aamir Khan's media relations agency, remained unanswered at the time of posting this news online.

The last advertising campaign Khan did was back in 2013, for India's diversified business house led by Adi Godrej i.e. the Godrej Group wherein Khan shot a series of campaigns for Godrej's consumer durables, electronics and properties businesses. However, towards end of 2014 the Godrej Group began releasing new series of television commercials albeit without Aamir Khan.    

It will now be interesting to see what magic will Aamir Khan do for Snapdeal, which also recently turned five and has become a highly valued e-commerce company. It currently employs over 4,000 people across the country and after crossing gross merchandise value of $2 billion, the e-marketplace operator is looking to hire 1,000 to scale up operations while also increasing seller base that has grown from 1,000 in 2012 to 100,000 now. 

Leading emarketplaces like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon and eBay among others have been doing everything possible under the sun to expand operations and bring in new categories / brand on their respective platforms. This is being done primarily to gain market share in the Indian e-commerce industry and increase valuations. 

Snapdeal is expanding aggressively in the Indian ecommerce which is veru fiercely competed by the likes of Flipkart and Amazon. 

Earlier this week, Snapdeal announced that the company is picking up a stake in logistics company GOJavas. Snapdeal also said that it is going to invest $200 million to expand its delivery sysytems. 

Also Read: Snapdeal picks up stake in GoJavas, to invest up to $200 million on logistics in next 1 year

Interestingly, the Indian e-commerce industry has seen a lot of action in the last couple of quarters particularly in the area of advertising and promotional activities. In fact, a majority of these players have used electronic and print media not only to build visibility but also increase brand recall and stickiness among the online shopping population in the country.

The study also stated that brands like Flipkart and Snapdeal were enjoying edge over the global players like Amazon and were attracting attention of investors including top global firms and leading industry leaders like Wipro chairman Azim Premji and Ratan Naval Tata the chairman emeritus of Tata Sons. In fact, both Premji and Tata have made undisclosed investments in Snapdeal.       

Snapdeal's association with Tata is not limited to just the personal investment in the emarketplace operator. Tata's affordable housing entity Tata Value Homes also sells housing units on the Snapdeal platform. Interestingly, Aamir Khan, who is very selective with his advertising deals, has shot for Titan and Tata Sky which are both Tata Group companies. 

Snapdeal was in the news recently with media reports suggesting that Snapdeal was in talks to raise $1 billion from Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba while also being in talks to acquire ad tech provider specialist Komli Media and the mobile recharge and discount coupon provider Freecharge.