The Campaign

The campaign launch film showcased Anil and Sonam in a real father-daughter dynamic, observing children mimicking their parents making excuses for not fulfilling promises. Through humor, Indian parents are reminded that they like Anil, they are at times guilty of unfulfilled promises to their children, and their children do remember this. The idea was to meld reel-life with real-life, and the natural father-daughter relationship between Anil and Sonam served that purpose precisely. Delivering absolute credibility and impact. The Priceless Surprise played upon the concept of transforming reel-life to real-life again. Potential winners had gathered to watch a video of Anil and Sonam announce the winner, but halfway through, Anil and Sonam appeared in the flesh to surprise the eventual winner and family with a tailored made Singapore holiday. Truly a Priceless Surprise.

Creative Execution

This was on of the fastest talent deals we have ever worked on. Talent procurement and contract negotiation lasted just 1 week at the beginning of March. The creative agency worked on the script concurrently to integrate with targeted talent. Shoots for the launch and Priceless Surprise films happened on 8 March and 30 April respectively. The campaign ran from 24 March to 6 May. Tapping on Anil and Sonam’s massive social media following, the talent posted about the campaign to their followers to build initial interest. Both films were posted on MasterCard India’s Facebook page. Anil and Sonam’s personal Facebook and Twitter profiles were also utilized for campaign posts. Twelve filming hours were utilized in total and Anil himself was heavily involved in the final editing of the films.

To date, the campaign has reached a total of 33 million people globally. 9.3 million Facebook impacts with an engagement rate of 7.25% - 1.4 times the Facebook projected rate of 5%, with a total of 5.6 million unique users. The campaign has generated over 1.5 million qualified leads to merchants, which is 3.8 times projections. Cost per click-to-merchant is 9 cents, 3 times lower than MasterCard benchmark. Total Video Views = 7,110,607 with Engagement Rates 3 times the industry average Campaign is valued at 2.3 times the invested spend - due to the power and recognition of the talent reducing the need to boost the creative on social.

This work ingeniously plays upon the dynamics of real-life Bollywood celebrity father and daughter duo, Anil and Sonam Kapoor, to form a genuine emotional connection with the target audience – affluent Indian parents. Anil, a busy father pursuing his film career, has made promises to Sonam that he failed to keep. Every Indian parent has let their child down at some point and can relate to Anil. Here and opportunity arises which allows MasterCard to come to the forefront of the conversation and communicate their Priceless positioning by allowing parents to make amends with a Priceless Surprise.

Individually, Anil and Sonam Kapoor deliver massive star power. Anil, a legend of Indian Cinema for over 40 years. A global star with roles in Mission Impossible and Slumdog Millionaire. 2016 will see him, reach 60 million household on season 2 of 24. Anil has 1.1 million Twitter followers. Sonam is India’s sweetheart. A raising star in the Kapoor film dynasty and social media powerhouse has an astounding 9.1 million Twitter followers (a number she loves to remind Anil of!) However as a pair, not only does appeal multiply, but more importantly, they represent a real-life example of exactly what the campaign is about – the dynamic between a busy father and adoring child. As Anil and Sonam drew upon real-life emotion in their delivery, Anil’s hectic filming schedule resonated with busy Indian parents who too would love nothing ore than to spend more time with their children.