Flipkart, a huge online store, has hired Dr. R.D. Sharma, one of India’s most recognized academics, to be the face of its new ad campaign for the Big Billion Days sale. This is an unexpected but very effective move for the company. The campaign has gone viral, surprising and delighting a generation of Indians who grew up solving challenging problems in his famed math books.
The ad is part of the “The Math is Mathing” campaign and features the famous mathematician in a hilarious situation that makes fun of the old “A train leaves point A…” dilemma. Then he wants people to bring in amusing math problems that are relevant to the world today. During the sale, these problems will be “solved” in a comical way by offering special bargains.
This strange choice for a corporate ambassador has people going nuts on social media. They’ve flooded sites like X (formerly Twitter) with a mix of shock, nostalgia, and gratitude. People on the internet said humorous things, like one person who said, “I never thought RD Sharma would make me smile, yet here we are,” and another who wrote, “This is wild!! Sir R. D. Sharma.
“I’ve spent most of my life in classrooms,” Dr. Sharma told the press. “So being on a movie set was a whole new experience for me.” It was good to see that math, which I’ve always enjoyed, could be conceived of in such a nice way.
Pratik Shetty, Flipkart’s Vice President of Growth and Marketing, said that “very few people cut across generations the way Dr. R.D. Sharma does.” Everyone, from parents to kids to grandparents, knows his name and his books.
The campaign’s success highlights a trend in advertising: companies are moving away from utilizing celebrities to sell their products and instead making things that are relatable, nostalgic, and culturally relevant to the people they want to reach. On September 23, the Big Billion Days sale that everyone has been looking forward to will commence. The viral ad campaign has already raised the threshold for interest and involvement.