How Is CRED Becoming The New “Marketing ka Gunda”?

A company’s advertisement made Rahul Dravid lose his cool that no other fierce cricketer could make him do. The “Indiranagar ka Gunda”, as seen in the latest commercial by CRED, has left many people wondering “Can Rahul Dravid get angry?” What’s important to note is how a video of less than 25 seconds amused the large number of audience.

What made the CRED commercial with Rahul Dravid go viral?

The idea of presenting a change of public image of the 48-year old cricketer was well-applauded by netizens. People who had not ever seen Dravid shouting, were astonished to see his dark side.

The conceptualisation of the commercial was not brought up by some advertising agency. The man behind such an incredible script was Tanmay Bhat, co-founder of comedy collective AIB, a popular comedian and a YouTuber. Refraining from adopting any ‘xyz strategy’, the primary focus remained on execution of the concept.

The entire idea was so praiseworthy that it led to many celebs like Deepika Padukone adopting a similar fashion of self-promotion over social media. Police Departments also took cue from Rahul Dravid’s never-seen angry face to share advisory posts on social media.

A Shift from Conventional Advertising to Concept Advertising

With CRED embracing the idea of conceptual advertising, debate on how informed are commercials being created has risen. Advertising is a sole form of exposing the brand to the targeted prospects. And using this medium requires a significant amount of time and money. While big brands can easily go for it, startups find it difficult to cope. Reason why brands are not only limited to the advertising agencies, but also prefer to invest in crazy sensational ideas given by the most talented human resources.

However, the marketing and advertising fraternity stands divided on CRED’s advertising strategies. While some praised the strategy behind celebrity and their personality usage, others criticised it for wastage of money as the value proposition of CRED is not clear. Critics point out that while the entertainment factor is well-retained in the commercial, it is not clear what CRED is trying to sell. It seems as if two different ads are forcefully clubbed into one.

Pivotal marketing lessons from CRED advertising

While many digital business advisors, screenwriters, and category directors took to social media to express their dissenting voices, it is important for us to note down important marketing lessons that make CRED commercials a sensation.

1. Many brands use celebrity endorsements, but what makes CRED exceptional is to use celebrity signature moves that the audience can easily relate to, or a personality flip, that will keep the audience amazed.
2. What makes the content impactful is the timing of the release of the commercial. With the Indian Premier League season (IPL) starting, CRED found it as the perfect slot to gain more viewership and engagement. Afterall it takes something really incredible to steal a part of IPL’s thunder on the opening day.
3. The commercial has meme material that is later used for influential meme marketing for creating mass brand awareness.
4. An advertisement should be capable of starting a conversation.Tweets by other bands like Zomato, Dunzo, Ather Energy, Spotify India, and CARS24 to do brandjacking helped the CRED advertisement go viral.
   

      5. Making the viewers realize the benefits and showing unexpected things rather than describing features of the brand is a powerful tool to advertise and that's what CRED does.

When Magicpin takes a dig at CRED

Other brands and celebs have now spoofed CRED's commercial for self-promotion. Of these has come up a funny ad by Magicpin, a Gurugram-based rewards platform. Magicpin, an affiliate marketing platform, grabbed this opportunity to dig at CRED’s reward point system, when people were still talking about it. In the Magicpin ad, actor Vijay Raaz is seen making fun of “bread”, and talks about how other apps give people lakhs of points, but they are all clueless on how to use them. He tells people to come to magicpin where you actually get to use the rewards earned.

Magicpin's innovative take was hailed by numerous Twitter followers who were impressed with their creativity. Partaking in the fun, one of them tweeted, “Magicpin undoubtedly more CREDible.” Replying to this post, another user said “InCREDible as well.” Magicpin’s idea behind the campaign was, ‘most CRED users have lakhs of points, but don't seem to know how or where to use them’.

CRED’s commercial is not the first one to feature Rahul Dravid. However, Dravid’s commercials over the years have never pushed him out from his ideal image of calm and cool personality. And that’s what makes the audience glued to this advertisement. While some ads turned cricketers into gimmicks - dancing and singing all around, speaking catchphrases, CRED decided to break the mould with a simple idea - What if Rahul Dravid had a bad day?

Magicpin ad like CREDs ad has made an amazing use of Vijay Raaz. “The ad contrasts Vijay's down-to-earth, Hindi-speaking, plainspoken persona with the fancy tone and tenor of the Cred ad. With this ad, magicpin is positioning itself as the down-to-earth, "Asli Savings" option for everyone,” explains the brand.

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