Working from Home/In Quarantine: Commodifying COVID-19 “lockdown” period in India.

In this paper, we are examining the sponsored advertisement posts/regular post on Facebook of a few business enterprises based in India to promote their products during first two phases of COVID-19 lockdown period. As a marketing and product promotion strategy, many business companies use social media platforms like Facebook and others to advertise their product through quick sponsored posts from time to time. As the use of social media has increased during the lockdown period when people are spending their whole time at home for a more extended period, these sponsored posts are more likely to be hit by the viewers. The present paper studies the contents of select sponsored posts/regular posts on Facebook to show how the “lockdown” period created atmospherics for E-commerce businesses. It also argues that by using topical words and phrases like “quarantine” and “work from home” respectively, as a tempting marketing strategy, the capitalist enterprises are using this time of distress, global misery and tribulation, for promoting their business.