Background

A 2019 government survey revealed that 43% of Indians planned to spend more during the Diwali festive season. A whopping 89% looked forward to sales & discounts and 55% of people agreed to hold up their purchases in anticipation of festive sales and offers. HDFC Bank was offering discounts and cashback, over and above the brand discounts, on purchases made through their HDFC Bank Cards. However, with each brand heavily investing in promoting their discounts and offers, the entire market felt cluttered and monotonous. So no matter how great our deal was, we would still need some standing out, to ensure top of the head recall when the time came to make the purchase. Our objective was to promote HDFC Bank Festive Treats offers, and create a habit wherein every time a consumer transacted for their festive shopping, they would want to use an HDFC Bank card to make payments.

Describe the strategy

Our target audience was the digital-forward demographic who actively used social media platforms to follow influencers and youth icons. In recent times brand promotions through influencers have played a vital role in forming key consumer purchase decisions. We saw a unique opportunity to not ambush other brand-influencer promotions but instead piggyback on these ads, through AddAnAd. Instagram was a critical platform given the high affinity with our target audience. The Instagram stories feature was the most viable way to piggyback brand promotions, without treading into any legal grey areas with these brands. Also, we could get maximum actionable traction through its swipe up feature. The masterstroke of creativity for us was to be able to leverage an existing feature of the platform in a totally different way, without any new tech hacks, giving us the bandwidth to use our monetary resources wisely towards reaching more audiences, across Indian geographies.

Describe the execution

To every brand Ad, we simply 'Add An Ad' So when an influencer would post a brand promotion story, it would be immediately followed by our Ad with the influencer saying “Liked what you saw in my previous story? Swipe up and Shop right now with your HDFC Bank Debit/Credit cards to save more on your shopping!”. The intent of our communication was simple: Buy from the many brands that are offering discounts, but pay using an HDFC Bank card to avail of additional cashback and discounts on all your purchases. We repurposed Instagram’s most used ‘Story’ feature for a seamless & non-intrusive Ad. The sequencing of our Ad immediately after the many influencers' Instagram stories that were already promoting other branded offers, ensured that our Ad was hyper-contextual, seamless, ensured higher retention rates, strengthened the recall factor, and the swipe up link struck while the iron was still hot.

List the results

We collaborated with 75+ influencers with a combined follower base of 16 Million+ on Instagram. Thus successfully adding our Festive Treats Ad to over 80+ brand promotions, without ambushing any brand The placement of our Ad directly after a brand's Ad gave customers instant access to discounts on the products using the swipe up links on the stories. 102K Swipe Ups from Insta stories to make purchases 107% increase in website traffic Reach of 24 Million+ Engagement of 2.2 Million+ 25% increase in card spends for HDFC Bank during the campaign period 13% increase in Brand awareness and 11% increase in consideration post the campaign period. The increase in business and brand awareness of HDFC Bank during Festive Treats is a testament to the effectiveness of AddAnAD.