Comedian Rahul Subramanian plays himself and his alter-ego in ZestMoney ads

ZestMoney, the Buy Now, Pay Later player has unveiled its brand campaign to drive awareness and understanding about BNPL and the all-digital offerings by Zest. Starring stand-up comedian Rahul Subramanian as himself and his alter ego, these ads highlight the message in a series of quirky relatable circumstances.

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These quirky circumstances are based on a core human insight - that there’s always one side of us that wants a better life and longs for it, and the other side who’s constantly telling us to be more prudent, frugal and sensible. In this series, Rahul enacts the battle between these two.

It's gifting season now, and many people plan budgets to give gifts to friends and family. So one of the films focuses on Rahul trying hard to work out his budget. He furiously keys in numbers into a calculator. And then goes back to his list. He stops suddenly. He seems to have lost track. He crumples the paper into a ball and tosses it over his shoulder, exasperated. His alter-ego walks in just in time to catch the paper ball. He un-crumples the paper, looks at the list, whips his phone out, and scans the list. The next thing you see is a couch filled with gifts. Rahul is elated.

The second film depicts relatable heart-wrenching accidents that happen with precious gadgets, in this case, dropping a phone in the toilet. One Rahul wants to fish it out, and the other gives him a new phone, as we hear his old phone going back ‘plop’ into the toilet. And that’s where Buy Now, Pay Later becomes relevant. Limited funds should never stop your dreams and aspirations.

The campaign was conceptualised by an independent team comprising Vijay Joseph, Creative lead at ZestMoney and Deepika Chandrasekaran, Founder, Cock-A-Doodle films.

Lizzie Chapman, CEO and Co-founder at ZestMoney, said, “The narrative of our new brand campaign hinges on accessibility, convenience, and trust. We strongly believe that BNPL is an effective way to enable financial freedom for millions of people. We are focused on addressing the unmet credit needs of Indians by combining the convenience of payments with an absolute focus on the transparency of the offering. We have been powering pay later for 5 years now and have impacted the lives of 12 million customers. What customers love the most about Zest is that we are completely transparent and have no hidden fees at all. This is something we will always obsess about even as we add lakhs of new customers every month. Through this campaign, we aim to spread awareness about ZestMoney and inform consumers on how they can smartly plan their finances by choosing an option that offers transparency, digital experience and flexibility to shop across online and offline stores.”

Aishvarya Murali, Marketing Head at ZestMoney, said, “All of us growing up in middle-class families will relate to agonising over expenses, especially the spikes during festive or vacation times. Zest believes that deserving people should not agonise over these things. It should be easy, and breezy, and that’s the underlying message that this fun series wanted to give out. Also, as a responsible player, we believe transparency around repayment terms and the pay later process is integral to the offering and this is a huge competitive edge for us in the market. We’ve planned a 360% campaign which is rolling out as we speak, and the next few months are going to be super exciting for the brand.”

Deepika Chandrasekaran and Vijay Joseph, who conceptualised the series, said, "The brief of the campaign was pretty clear, to break down the proposition of ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ to the target audience and how ZestMoney is best suited to help them meet their needs. Rahul Subramanian was a perfect fit to kick off the series. We have been able to balance the use of humour while retaining the brand messaging. Idea was to leave the viewer with a nostalgic smile on similar experiences they have lived through.”

The company will roll out more films as part of the campaign in the coming months.

The ad films:

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