'It’s a big customer centric move from the brand': Saujanya Shrivastava

MakeMyTrip has rolled out two films featuring its brand ambassadors Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh. The films have been conceptualised by Publicis and show Singh playing the role of a hotel owner trying to lure Bhatt to pick his property to stay in.

 

One film to showcase the 'hotline' offering, opens with Singh asking Bhatt what would she do incase a water pipe bursts at the hote she's saying inl. Bhatt stays quiet through the conversation and is busy on her phone. Singh's reply comes through the loudspeaker of the phone, where he hears an executive from MakeMyTrip's hotline. The premise is that MakeMyTrip will solve any problem with a hotel booking within 60 minutes.


 

The other film shows the 'Assured' offering from the portal. Here Singh questions Bhatt's choice of hotel by asking her why didn't she pick his hotel. Bhatt replies with pictures of the room on her phone. Singh suggests to her that while the room may look good in the pictures, it may not in reality. The duo walk in to Bhatt's hotel room to get exactly what they found in the picture. The film ends with the voice over introducing MakeMyTrip's 'assured' feature.

 

Speaking with Campaign India, Saujanya Shrivastava, CMO, MakeMyTrip, said, “The overall online hotel booking penetration is at just 15 per cent. The hotel market is extremely scattered. So there’s an opportunity to grow the market and that’s what we’ve seen. Through our previous campaigns we’ve had different reasons to get people to book online. We have had campaigns around our 100 per cent refund in case of cancellations, ‘pay later’ and the likes. For this campaign, our research pointed at unfamiliarity being a key barrier for offline bookers to come online. Another was a lack of human interface, in case something went wrong. So therefore to serve this we launched MMT ‘Assured’ hotels. These are handpicked hotels where customers are rest assured that the reviews and pictures they see, are what they get.” 

 

He added, “Incase something goes wrong you can get on a dedicated hotline and we’re resolving that under an hour. And if that can’t be resolved, we’ll provide the customer with compensation in the form of a free stay/upgrade or the likes. We have stated this in a television campaign and are the only brand giving a guarantee. To go on television and say that it’s a big customer centric move from the brand.”

 

To make it to MakeMyTrip’s list of ‘Assured’ hotels, the property must have a minimum rating of four. Other parameters include clarity around hotel policy and location. 

 

The campaign went on air on 18 March and will be running until the end of May. MakeMyTrip, an associate sponsor of the IPL, will have these films running during the tournament.