If you are watching the Dream11 IPL, there is no chance that you’ve not seen the sheer brilliance of Amir Khan in the series of episodic ads of PhonePe. Each ad of the series leaves you with a big smile on your face. The campaign has truly touched my heart and in case you haven’t seen it then here is the video.
Medianews4u spoke to PhonePe’s Director – Brand Marketing, Richa Sharma to dive deep into the thought behind the campaign and a lot more.
Read on…
This is a lovely campaign with the sheer brilliance of Amir Khan, and very well supported by Alia Bhatt. When you signed these two stars as the brand ambassadors did you’ll have the campaign in the works? Were they signed on keeping this campaign in mind?
Both Aamir Khan and Alia Bhat are perfect as the face of our brand as they are both a powerhouse of talent and appeal to Indians across the country. They are inspiring and bold and personify values of integrity and trust that strongly resonate with the PhonePe brand.
While Aamir Khan has been associated with our brand for over 2 years, we began our association with Alia early this year. We have done adverts across categories with both of them in the past with great outcomes.
Campaign Vision
From small villages to busy metros, Indians are striving to progress and prosper. We see our platform as a trusted partner to those billion aspirations, bridging the digital divide and empowering Indians to transact conveniently and securely and aspire to do more and move ahead in life, one transaction at a time. Our vision is to liberate the flow of money and services so that everyone can unlock opportunities to progress at pace.
Crafted with this belief, our new brand campaign is in line with our brand platform of Karte Ja Badhte Ja; that progress is a continual journey and PhonePe in myriad ways helps millions of Indians progress in their lives everyday. The campaign showcases fast transactions, convenient payment modes, simpler investment options, the Switch platform providing one-click access to over 100+ apps and PhonePe’s wide acceptance at over 12 million offline shops.
What was the brief given to the creative team for this campaign?
There are a few barriers/ reasons in consumers’ minds when it comes to digital payments that have held them back from trying it out. We wanted the campaign to address some of those questions people have in their minds in a very crisp yet engaging manner. The creative device of a police station set-up and episodic treatment make for snacky and entertaining content that lands the message of how simple, safe and quick it is to use PhonePe and the fact that it’s already the trusted choice of crores of customers and merchants across India.
What was the idea behind an episodic approach to the campaign… How did that come about?
The objective was to introduce digital payments, explain the benefits – easy to use, safe and ubiquitous to users. The series of adverts explain the key takeaways through an engaging storytelling format that unfolds over six, 20 sec adverts. While each ad talks about a different reason to try PhonePe, yet the story picks up from where the previous ad ends.
This episodic treatment was chosen to create engagement and to get customers excited and keep them guessing about the next one, while continually reinforcing the key message of using PhonePe for digital payments.
Karte Ja Badhte Ja… what was the objective of the campaign, while the timing of the campaign during the IPL is phenomenal… what is the response you have garnered in terms of downloads/user base and brand recall?
PhonePe’s objective behind running this campaign during the cricket season was to reach the massive audience that’s not yet gone digital for payments. The key focus is to remind the audience that PhonePe stands at the vanguard of safe, easy and instant digital payments and financial services for each and every Indian.
The campaign has been well received by all consumer cohorts – current users, category non-users alike, with the adverts garnering over 425 million views on YouTube and Facebook. While the campaign is still ongoing, there has already been a significant positive impact on brand recall and business metrics along with positive engagement and organic love being shown by audiences on digital platforms. We have already surpassed the campaign targets that we were tracking and with cricket now kicking in full flow, it’s only going to deliver bumper results in the coming month.
Well, as per media reports, you had set aside 800 CR for marketing this year!! Do you feel the monies spent worthy of the humongous amount?
The category is poised to see tremendous growth for the next 24-36 months on the whole and being the category leader the onus is more so on PhonePe to reach each and every household and handhold each Indian to experience safe and easy digital payments via PhonePe.
Our aspiration is to digitize payments for a billion Indians and when you look at it from that lens the quantum of spends are the right impetus that’s needed. Given how 2020 has been in terms of the slew of campaigns we have done, be it Feb-Mar when we launched the brand platform of Karte Ja Badhte Ja, May-June when we were trying to help people adopt safe payments in the time of pandemic or recently with our new campaign which has been on air since Aug, we have seen tremendous growth through the funnel and it’s a great confidence boost to see Indians connect with the brand and message and place their trust on PhonePe.
What are some of the key learnings that you learned while creating such a lovely campaign?
- A great campaign comes down to the ability to tell an engaging story in a few seconds.
- Simplicity in any communication is key
- Listen to the voice of the consumer and offer solutions that matter to them.
- Functional messages don’t have to mean that campaign can’t be engaging and story led
- Last but not the least, it takes time and patience and repetition to land one’s message
