Gaurav Taneja, a former pilot turned YouTuber, recently questioned the brand's influence on Shark Tank India after failing to land a deal on the show. After getting no deal for his supplement brand BeastLife in Shark Tank India season 4, Taneja raised questions about the marketing power of the show.
In a post on LinkedIn, Taneja wrote, “We recently took BeastLife up to Shark Tank India And it was a wonderful experience! Many tout the show as a huge branding tool – even if you don't secure a deal, the exposure is priceless.
Naturally, we expected a huge increase in website traffic because of the strong brand equity and huge audience Shark Tank had built over four seasons. But here's what the numbers revealed:
🔹 Traffic is running Rosier food Launch date: 𝟰𝟬𝟴𝗞
🔹 Traffic is running BeastLife Launch date: 28
🔹 Traffic and later Hashtag #SharkTank Release Date: 22K
Surprisingly, the traffic on Shark Tank is less than the push on our own Instagram Stories! ”
He wondered if Shark Tank India might lose popularity due to being under a paywall. The show can gain traction once episodes are uploaded to YouTube (which makes it free to watch for a large audience),” he said, adding, “Skip a TV telecast for season 4 is a strategic misstep.”
In the latest episode of Shark Tank India season 4, Taneja appeared as a pitcher for his fitness brand BeastLife along with his business partner. The fitness brand sells a variety of products such as easily digestible protein supplements, creatine monohydrate and energy-boosting mass gainers.
During the pitch, they said that the brand quickly gained traction and recorded sales of Rs 1 crore within an hour of its website launch.
Taneja aka Flying Beast also ran into another controversy for using Shark Tank India to promote a brand other than BeastLife. He was seen promoting Rosier Foods, another brand known for making organic ghee using Vedic technology. Other popular products of the brand are oil, amlaprash, raw and natural honey as well as nut butter.
Social media users were furious about the promotional exercise. Some users suggested that they stop consuming content from influencers like Gaurav Taneja. Others thought the move hypocritical, as the YouTuber said nothing about Rosier Foods on the show, but is now promoting it using Shark Tank.