Vodafone highlights how M-Pesa is as good as handing over the money yourself

Vodafone has launched campaign to highlight its mobile money transfer and payment service – M-Pesa, which is supported by ICICI Bank. The ad film conceived by O&M Mumbai aim to highlight the features of the service.

The ad film titled 'Scooter' opens at a dusty village road where a boy is seen crouched near an old scooter. He calls up his elder brother and asks him inane questions about the weather. The elder brother stops in his tracks realising that the main reason for his younger sibling's call is to ask him for money. He asks how much money does the younger brother want, and is told the amount of Rs 3000. The shot zooms out to show the brothers on the same road talking to each other through their phones. Meanwhile, the younger sibling is still trying to get his brother to loan him the money and promising that he will return it. The elder brother finally gives in and hands him the amount. As soon as the money changes hands, the younger brother taunts saying that he wouldn't be spending money on fixing the old scooter if instead a new bike would've been bought for him. The elder brother is now out of the film depicting that they've never been on the same road this whole time and a voice over says 'ab mobile se paise bhejna, apne haathon dene jitna turant, Vodafone M-Pesa' (Now sending money through mobile is as fast as handing over the money yourself).

The second ad titled 'cable TV' operates on the same premise as the first ad, which is two people present at the same place yet talking to each other over the phone. This ad sees a pregnant housewife receiving a call from her husband who enquires about her well being. The wife, though, informs him about random un-important details like the number of crows she's seen and that people in the house across the street have hung new curtains. Her husband teases her about keeping an eye on everybody to which she retorts saying as if she has a lot of things to watch at home and taunts him saying that he still hasn't had the cable TV installed. The husband assures her that he will get to it as soon as he arrives. His wife nudges the argument indicating that it might be too late by then as there's a Salman Khan starrer movie set to show on TV the next day. The husband then hands over the money needed to get cable on the telly and jokes that he's no less than the Bollywood actor. The film ends with the same voiceover as the previous one.     

The third TVC is set to go on-air on June 21.

Ronita Mitra, SVP - brand communication and insights, Vodafone India, said, "Vodafone M-Pesa campaign’s core objective is to create awareness and position the service as a fast, safe and easy way of mobile money transfer. The campaign’s uniqueness lies in the single unified idea of showing mobile money transfer -as good as handing over the money yourself.”

Rajiv Rao, NCD, Ogilvy India, said, "The consumer for M-Pesa works away from home in big cities and sends money to remote places across the country. Sending money in the conventional way can be a painstakingly slow process or even unreliable. We took this insight and showed them a new way of doing the same."

The 360-degree campaign will straddle print, OOH, radio and on-ground activation. The campaign would run from June to July 2014.

Credits

Creative agency: Ogilvy & Mather (Mumbai)

Production: Early Man Films

Media Agency: Maxus