Sulekha.com, the Indian classifieds web-site which has also forayed into local deals, and property listings, has announced a brand makeover, introducing a new visual brand identity as well as a change in positioning, from being a vanilla classifieds player to an integrated local e-commerce company. The company is also running a multi-city campaign with a above-the-line and below-the-line marketing activities, and has allocated a budget of Rs 5 crore during the first month of the launch. Speaking with MediaNama, Satya Prabhakar, Founder & CEO of Sulekha mentioned that offering different products like classifieds, listings and deals under their respective names was confusing users, so the company felt that it needed to create a more integrated experience focusing on the concept of local needs rather than positioning it as a classifieds site or a local search site, because users understand what they need, more than the different business terms involved. So the rebranding also marks a change in the company's fundamental business strategy, orienting all of Sulekha's services around user needs, making it a digital marketplace of sorts. - Response to Deals site: On being asked how the deals site was doing and on the issue of differentiation, Prabhakar informed that the deals site has also been integrated with Sulekha's homepage and claimed that it was at the 6th or 7th place in terms of ecommerce value, after being commercially launched in October 2011. He said that the differentiation comes from the fact that the deals are offered by the same companies…
