Now 'Pay at Checkout' with MakeMyTrip hotels

The TVC, conceptualised by Publicis Capital, brings back the delightful duo of Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in a new avatar

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | October 3, 2016

Click on the Image to watch the TVC.

MakeMyTrip's recent series of adverts starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt have regaled the audience with their humour and quirky characters while informing them about the services and features the portal offers at the same time. Taking the campaign forward, MakeMyTrip launched a new TVC for its 'Pay at Checkout' feature with the delightful duo.

Saujanya Shrivastava

“This is an extension of the April, May, June campaign we did with Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt. At that time the strategic objective for MakeMyTrip, which continues, was to open the online hotel market, expand the category and recruit new users. At that time the campaign clearly highlighted the exciting features and benefits of booking hotels at MakeMyTrip.  The campaigns at that time were focusing on the singular fact that the bulk of travellers preferred to walk into a hotel and book as they believed that they can get a better deal directly. The idea then was to create dissonance in these set of travellers and dramatically highlight the inadequacy of this direct approach,” said Saujanya Shrivastava, CMO, MakeMyTrip.

The campaign was a huge success, with MakeMyTrip seeing a record recruitment of new users in the category.

“The campaign was all about associating the brand with this new meaning of connecting it to people's travel ambitions. The campaign saw 45 per cent more users coming into the category. Our standalone hotels transaction grew in that quarter; we grew year-on-year at 478 per cent. But when we looked at the overall online hotels' category, we realised that it is probably at the penetration level of 12 to14 per cent. So of the total hotels market, online hotels (transaction) constituted about 12 to14 per cent. This meant there was adequate headroom for growth and category expansion and at MakeMyTrip, catalysing this shift from offline to online is something that we have espoused,” added Shrivastava.

After its last campaign, MakeMyTrip conducted a research among customers across the country in tier I and II cities to understand people who recollected their campaigns but weren't going online and booking hotels. Their research revealed that people were hesitant to make online payments for hotels.

“The people we approached for the study came back to us asking why a 'cash on delivery' option wasn't available for hotel bookings. This acted as a great symbol of trail for the online hotel category. This is when we got together and started thinking what kind of feature we can actually churn out in the market and this led to 'Pay at Checkout', which really is about giving consumers the power that they can check and evaluate the hotels before having to pay,” said Shrivastava.

The new TVC, conceptualised by Publicis Capital, brings back Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in a brand new avatar. The TVC tells the story of Bhatt who is organising her sister's wedding and Ranveer 'Raj Dilwala' Singh who is the delivering flowers for the ceremony. When asked about the preparations, Singh asks for advance payment only to be told by Bhatt that he will get the payment on the wedding day. Singh tries to make Bhatt understand that everyone asks for advance in today's time to which pat comes Bhatt's reply that the hotel she booked for her sister through 'MMT' (MakeMyTrip) did not ask for one.

Bobby Pawar

Speaking about the creative thought behind the TVC, Bobby Pawar, Managing Director and Chief Creative Officer, Publicis India, said, “At the heart of it, I think the thought was how to dramatise MakeMyTrip's amazing new service. In most instances in life, when you are buying something big, you have to put in an advance and that is also true for booking hotels online. With almost all travel sites you have to pay in advance but MakeMyTrip believes that you should pay the cash when you get delivery of the goods or services. The idea came from a simple thought that the 'Pay at Checkout' experience is so amazing and mind-altering that you begin to expect it from just about everywhere and that it should be the norm and why should anybody charge you up-front. The entire campaign has been towards making memorable the differences between MakeMyTrip and everybody else and we used the humour and the celebrities to drive that message home in a very memorable manner.”

Speaking about the target audience, Shrivastava said, “The campaign really speaks to anybody who books hotels offline though they may own a smartphone and are maybe otherwise online. So, basically somebody who is booking hotels offline owns a smartphone but is otherwise online and when I say otherwise online I mean they are shopping from Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong but are not yet booking travel online.”

The company will roll out an aggressive 360-degree campaign to support the launch of the new feature. “It will be a TV-centric campaign and we will be looking at GECs, movie channels and news channels. We are going to be associate sponsors of the India-New Zealand test match and one international series. Apart from that there will be aggressive outdoor campaigns in tier I and II cities. We are activating cinema theatres where our TVC will be playing in tier I and II cities. There will be a radio campaign and along with that there will be a lot of emphasis in digital,” said Shrivastava.

The 'Pay at Checkout' feature is available across 7,500 domestic hotels of which 18 per cent are 4-5 star, 37 per cent are 3 star hotels and 45 per cent are 1-2 star and budget category hotels. International hotels will be added under this new industry-first feature next month.

The TVC:

https://img-cdn.thepublive.com/filters:format(webp)/bmi/media/post_attachments/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MakeMyTrip.jpg

Credits

Client: MakeMyTrip

Agency: Publicis Capital

CEO India: Hemant Misra

Managing Director and CCO: Bobby Pawar

Production House: Chrome Pictures

Director (film): Amit Sharma

Producer: Poonam Wahi

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com