The Campaign

Insight: In the mobile wallet category, Establishing Trust is the biggest imperative. Breaking habit or inertia is the next task. The learning from the telecom biggies Airtel and Vodafone, was that until unless we disrupt the consumer behavior and break this inertia, adoption on a large scale would not be possible. Resolve, proprietary communications planning tool, helped us identify the main stages of a consumer’s journey. The three main stages in a consumer’s journey were: 1. Prime: When the consumer is forming a bond with Paytm. Imperative for him to know about Paytm, get convinced of its stature. Start Trusting the brand. 2. Prompt: Give the consumer the stimuli to think about Paytm and the benefits that accrue to him\her. Enough stimuli that disrupts his\her behavior. 3. Use: Finally be at the moment of truth i.e. in Paytm’s case, be there at the moment of transaction.

Creative Execution

Media Channels and Integration: A communication architecture, where each communication sub-task with different stages of the consumer journey was layered helping us arrive at a specific media vehicle along with the special role it would play in achieving the set task. Implementation and Scale (Width & Depth of Execution): Event sponsorship (Paytm Freedom Cup) formed the pivot of the whole visibility design. It helped bolster the brand icon focus as it reached 255 mn people across various media. Huge PR got generated (357 news articles). As supporting pillars to it, IPL on-air sponsorship and Star TV mega block were executed. Branding of most prime news channels properties alongwith Front-page jacket ads in leading dailies shot up the brand’s recall value. When it came to inducing trials, Point-of-transaction advertising push played a big role. Various interventions at actual consumption moments were executed to educate and nudge the consumer to transact.

A perfect combination of Reminder ATL media and Point-of-transaction BTL media helped us convert the massive mass of ‘aware’ people to actually ‘try’ Paytm. Business got a huge impetus: In terms of actual transaction value, approx. INR 300 Cr increase in transaction value. A 100%+ increase in business value. Product Usage: Achieved Target of 100mn+ Subscribers: The number of app downloads doubled from 18mn to 37mn with active App sessions increasing by 144%. E-wallet subscribers increased from a mere 23mn to an astounding 115 million. Phenomenal movements in Brand Health parameters: Brand TOMA went up by 370% (10 to 47) in less than 6 months– a marketing case study in itself. The Ever Used score increased by 291% from 11 to 43. High ROI: By smartly playing out our BCCI association, we were able to juice out 7 times the media value from a small investment of Rs 28 Cr.

This work is relevant for Media because a well-crafted & thought through integrated media strategy helped an underdog take over the big guns to become one of the few non-telecom companies to achieve the leadership status in the e-wallet business in no time. As of date, Paytm has the largest E-wallet subscriber base and has managed to create a niche for itself in a short span of 2 years. This feat accomplished in an ecosystem where larger telecom players have failed to convince their users to venture into their E- Wallet space.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Target Audience: Any urban consumer who is making a financial transaction either online or offline qualifies for Paytm’s target audience. Hence, the only precondition is of ownership of a smartphone. Approach: With the consumer journey stages in mind, and barriers and consumer insight, the key communications task identified were of Gaining Visibility and Driving Trial 1. Gaining Visibility meant Being top of mind, Having a strong Property Association and Building Brand Icon Focus. 2. Driving Trial would mean Disrupting shopping behavior and Creating an Intervention at the moment of truth. Media Planning: With the above two tasks at hand for the brand, we went back to our proprietary tool Resolve to arrive at the media touch-points required to connect with the consumer at the right stages of his consumer journey. The top channels which would be most effective in achieving the brand objective were identified.