Let’s be blunt, the Indian advertising space is crowded and the purpose, that once was to occupy space in the target consumers’ minds, has only gotten more difficult with time.
For example, people till date refer to photocopying as Xerox, i.e., Xerox managed to position itself in the minds of their target consumers in such a way that for generations, people found it to be the product it sold. However, today, even though Paytm had managed to establish itself as a synonym to online payments it didn’t take much time for competitors like GPay and PhonePe to replace Paytm in the minds of the consumers.
Creativity stems from challenges and innovative thinking.
BRAND POSITIONING
In two simple lines, CRED positions itself to the customers as a platform that rewards users for paying their credit card bills, and to businesses, as a platform that is a pool of credible users for reaching customers with the ability to pay.
COLOUR PSYCHOLOGY
The colour majorly used is Black. Black is the colour that represents power, attractiveness, elegance and sophistication. It is also the most accepted and appreciated colour by the youth.
DICHOTOMY OF GENERATIONS
Approximately 46% of the population lies in the age bracket 15 and 44.[i]
Given the above data, it is clear that people above the age 30 are maximum users of credit card while social media is majorly used by people below the age of 30.[iv]
Generation Z (born 1997 onwards) uses social media more frequently[v]
THE CONUNDRUM
The platform seems to be designed for the young people, but the product is for people above the age of 30. Why?
Indian people have trust issues with credit card payments and according the Kunal Shah of CRED, “it’s still in a revolutionary stage”. Thus, to increase the rate of adoption of the services, the company introduced rewards and cashbacks which has was an exciting space when the app was launched in India.
Now, the next step is to make the app popular and make people aware of the application. That was happening around the world majorly through social media. However, for CRED, their target customers were not the majority users of social media.
So, how to reach the target audience fast?
SAYING THE RIGHT THING AND BEING AT THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME
In every advertisement put out, the majority advertisements said, “Download CRED”. They kept it simple and always end their adverts with the action words.
During the IPL they first came up with an advertisement showing a completely different side of the famous cricketer Rahul Dravid. The one known for a calm personality was shown as someone very different. This helped the company in gaining a lot of traction.
Later, they also launched an ad in which they again had cricketers, but from a different era. Those cricketers were followed by people of ages 30+. And in the ad, they clearly asked the Gen Zs to ask their elders about who were the OGs. How did that help?
People who used social media the most, actually shared it with their elders to show them the ad. This evoked a feeling of reminiscence and bind CREDs name in a lot of minds. In other words, CRED successfully managed to use the crucial IPL time, to launch ads with cricketers, targeted at younger people, so that they could reach their target audience, i.e., people who were above 30.
CRED’S PROBABLE FUTURE STRATEGY
CRED’s target market expanses over both B2B and B2C. Its advertisements are however focused towards B2C. It seems to be doing so, because the valuation of the platform increases with a greater number of users. With a large pool of users with enough financial credibility (as users can only join the platform if their CIBIL score is above 750), it can be a lucrative platform for advertising.
This could attract a lot of advertising business from B2B businesses and at the same time with more number of cashbacks, it could lure more customers.
[i] https://censusindia.gov.in/census_and_you/age_structure_and_marital_status.aspx [ii] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201119005603/en/Credit-Card-Users-in-India-2020-Analysis-of-Online-User-Conversations---ResearchAndMarkets.com#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20credit%20card,higher%20penetration%20opportunity%20in%20India. [iii] https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/indian-bank-s-credit-card-ipo-reflects-the-ambani-factor#:~:text=In%20India's%20fiscal%20year%20ended,much%20as%20eight%20percentage%20points. [iv] https://www.statista.com/statistics/751005/india-share-of-internet-users-by-age-group/#:~:text=Around%2054%20percent%20of%20the,the%20total%20internet%20user%20base. [v] https://www.social.co.uk/blog/the-latest-social-media-trends-you-should-know-about/#:~:text=Unsurprisingly%20Gen%20Z%20are%20the,to%20%2B66%25%20since%202015. 0points.
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