Snapdeal.com Nagar - Why it is a PR Stunt?

Excellent PR (did you say CSR?) initiative by Snapdeal.com. They adopt a village in UP and promise to take care of all their basic needs. Lo and behold, Snapdeal.com is a trending topic on twitter for the last two days. A few reasons why I don't believe it is less CSR and more PR.

1. A company so early in its lifecycle (started in 2008-09 and became big in the last few months). Would they get into CSR this early?
2. Most big players get into CSR when they have no other option. Why would a small player do it now?
3. If they had to do CSR, they might have tried to help in markets where their customers come from (a village or a government school near Bangalore or even within Bangalore for example) I really doubt anyone in Shiv Nagar would have even heard about Snapdeal leave alone buy anything in Snapdeal.
4. If indeed it was about CSR, how did the word get out and how did it spread like wildfire. Here I can give the benefit of doubt to Snapdeal, but it is a little fishy.
5. It is a small company (around 500 people) with around $20 mil in revenue. Why would they get into CSR this early?
6. The Snapdeal painted on the handpumps and on the board above is in the exact colour of their logo and makes it obvious that even if they were not aware of the naming of Snapdeal.com nagar, they took full mileage out of it by painting it all over the village so that when the press comes there to click photos, they get some really good PR juice. :-)

I am therefore inclined to believe this is more PR than CSR. If it is indeed CSR, kudos to the Snapdeal.com Team for thinking big and getting lucky with all the PR that they got. Anyway, even if the villagers themselves came up with the idea of renaming their village from Shiv Nagar to Snapdeal.com Nagar, its a smart move to make sure Snapdeal.com continues to back them and help them (atleast while they are in business :-)) and I hope they remain in business for some time since I've got my fair share of deals from them (A Holiday, A Dental Checkup, A Team Lunch, A massage package gift, a few other products as gifts and a whole lot more). :-)

Read more here and the Snapdeal.com point of view on this here