Marketers in India love featuring Bollywood celebrities in their brand films. They collaborate with celebrities to not only add the glam factor to their showreel but also to make a lasting influence on consumers’ minds. As consumers are spending more time on their small screens, marketers are making content pieces more than ads. Celebrities also know that’s the flavour of the season. However, consumers are getting smarter and at some levels, even demanding. They want to watch relatable content and ads.
Enter the new heroes or heroines. Employee brand personalities.
Today, a set of creators who are hyperactive and catching a lot of attention on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram happen to be entrepreneurs, their employees, CEOs of corporate houses, and their employees. This new brigade of personalities is bringing in a new character to branded films. They stand as the brand’s loyalists and true ambassadors.
The other thing is using employees in advertisements for marketing products and services is a cost-effective and smart way for a brand to develop a personal relationship with its target customers. Consumers are able to relate with the employee featured in the ad and form a trustful environment. The key is to realise how to use the employee in the ad. They aren’t professional actors, most of them haven’t had to face a camera before. Utilizing them efficiently does prove to be useful for most brands. From what we’ve seen in these ads here, most brands have this formula down flat and we cannot wait to see more.
Here are brands that have featured their in-house brand ambassadors – employees and founders.
Swiggy
The recent campaign from Swiggy is simple. It highlights a very nerve-wracking issue. What to order for lunch? It takes viewers through the various phases of someone who’s hungry but can’t decide what to order. After finally deciding, the protagonist is surrounded by freeloaders who ask him to order for them as well. Finally comes the waiting period, where you are waiting for the food to arrive so that you can finally satiate your hunger. A great ad by Swiggy, very clearly conveyed. However, there is one catch. As a viewer, you will definitely not notice this unless you’re told about it. Viren, the main character in the ad, isn’t actually a professional actor. He is just an ordinary Swiggy employee, who works in the company’s marketing department. Yes, very convincing acting, right? Swiggy’s idea to use an actual employee is smart as it adds a personal touch that makes it relatable for the audience. Moreover, not to forget the humorous irony behind a Swiggy employee not being able to decide what to eat.
Marico
All of us at some point in our lives have tried to solve the Rubik’s Cube and have failed. There are 43 quintillion ways a Rubik’s cube can be jumbled and only one correct pattern can solve it. If you leave it to chance, it’s as good as impossible to solve it. FMCG company Marico’s recent advertisement was well-packaged and conveyed a beautiful message. Instead of using conventional actors, the ad featured an employee of the company or ‘Mariconian’, Sristi Samrah, who could solve the Rubik’s cube in no time. The ad cleverly conveyed, using the Rubik’s cube as a medium that one shouldn’t completely depend on luck in life for a safe and successful future. One should be capable of turning the odds in favour just as Samrah did by solving the Rubik’s cube which is a metaphor for overcoming the impossible. Tackle all obstacles one cube at a time and forge your own future.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
TCS often features its employees on social media who have interests and pursuits outside of work. A recent brand work showcased the vivid talents of TCS’er Reshma Raj. Reshma is an Indian classical dancer trained in Kuchipudi, Mohiniyattam, and Bharatnatyam. She began dancing at the age of three and still continues to preserve the same traditional dance forms. What makes her unique is her ability to tell modern stories via Indian classical dance such as her portrayal of Kevin Carter’s famous photograph, ‘The Vulture and the little Girl’, or telling the story of the Tata’s and the impact they’ve had on India. This is certainly an intriguing way for companies to boost employees’ morale and encourage them to develop certain recreational hobbies for their growth.
Trivago
Don’t we all remember those Trivago ads that used to air in 2017 and 2018? It’s the annoying ‘Trivago guy’ who carved a space in our memories forever. Almost everyone who saw the ad found him to be extremely annoying. Little did people know though, that the ‘Trivago guy’ aka Abhinav Kumar wasn’t actually an actor. He was the country manager for Trivago. Yes! He was an employee. No wonder did he seem like he had no prior experience in acting. The ads became so infamous pan India that it created an unexpected huge buzz for Trivago which worked well in their favour. There’s no such thing as bad publicity right?
In fact, Kumar became so popular that the internet community turned him into a meme sensation. Sportingly, he used to actively share these memes on his social media. Recently, he left Trivago to join Paytm. Paytm didn’t miss its chance to capitalize on this opportunity and released ad campaigns with Kumar at its helm.
HDFC Bank
HDFC Bank’s Vigil Aunty series of ads created a lot of chatter this year. The ads were conceptualised as a means to generate awareness against fraud and promote safe banking. The ads featuring Anuradha Menon as the protagonist were fun to watch and delivered an important message in a unique and comical manner. One of the ads in this series involved an unconventional job interview between Vigil Aunty, who was applying for the post of ‘Most Vigil Person’, and the actual marketing team of HDFC. Yet another ad involving the employees of a company. It was certainly interesting and fun to watch. While the interview was unconventional, it did have some sense of seriousness and conveyed the message cleverly and clearly. It’s not just junior and mid-level employees who participated in advertisements. The head honchos of companies too don’t shy away and played along with the script.
The Whole Truth
The Whole Truth is a brand that focuses on healthy food options that are chemical and preservative free. This year the brand released a series of advertisements featuring popular comedian Rohan Joshi alongside the founder of the brand, Shashank Mehta. The brand chooses to call these an educational mini-series rather than a simple ad. Rightly so as well. The ad compared regular packaged snacks and healthier snack items offered by The Whole Truth. It highlighted how all their offerings are free of chemicals, preservatives, and sweetening agents. It’s an interesting series of ads and the founder’s participation does add a feeling of assurance.
Shaadi.com
The hype and hoopla around Shark Tank India may have died down; the Sharks, however, are still riding the wave of popularity that they received due to the show. It’s a great tactic to use a relevant face for an advertisement. It gets better when that relevant face is the founder of the company itself. In that case, there is a high chance that the ad will do wonders for the brand. Such is the case for this ad campaign released by Shaadi.com. The ad features founder Anupam Mittal taking you through his journey of building Shaadi.com to make it what it is today. Like a perfect pitch to the future participants of Shark Tank.