In advertising, almost everything CRED touches goes viral. Known for its quirky and hilarious advertising, the fintech startup is back again with a unique set of ads. The campaign is being rolled out in the form of classified ads which appear in newspapers as either product listings, announcements, matrimonial ads and even apologies.
Devoid of any brand logo or tagline, the catch is they barely look like ads except the fact that each listing mentions CRED. It is piquing the curiosity of netizens for its unique tone and funny descriptions making it viral as more people share it across social media platforms and via messaging apps like WhatsApp. The creative marketing campaign by CRED is to promote BidBlast, a bidding game at the CRED store wherein you bid through CRED coins, and if your bid is the lowest and unique, you win.
One such advertisement that has now gone viral on Twitter is a prime example. A man is looking for a bike instructor – but he has some requirements.
“This is Pravinbhai Sudani, need an instructor to teach me riding a bike. He must be polite cuz if I wanted to be humiliated I would’ve asked my dad to teach me. He shouldn’t be a Gemini as they are irresponsible. Also if he loves anime we can discuss Naruto. My bike is Jawa Bobber. Don’t ask for unreal money as I won it by playing bidblast on the CRED store,” the advertisement in page 10 of a newspaper read.
I am still trying to process Pravinbhai ki demands. 😭 pic.twitter.com/8ruzKZR7wY
— Aneetta (@aneetta_joby_) December 24, 2022
The tweet mentioning the ad has already been viewed by over 5 lakh users.
In another newspaper listing, which appeared as an announcement, the copy reads “this is to inform that I Don Joseph has managed to beat the odds and won the bounce infinity electric scooter by playing bidblast on CRED store. I want to thank me and the only person who believed in me, which is me again.”
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On LinkedIn, a user shares another CRED ad that appeared in a newspaper.
“Is this another genius marketing ad by CRED ? Saw this ad in today’s newspaper by a guy named Venkat who is selling his iPhone 13 under some insane conditions. It’s certainly an intriguing way to create curiosity among the audience. However, if it’s not an ad, it is undoubtedly the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen,” the user writes.
Unique and eye-catching
CRED is getting the eye-balls and the mentions online.
The hilarious ads seem to be hitting the right notes across social media platforms as more people pick it up and share. By default, CRED is being tagged and mentioned despite the company not taking over large and prime space in newspapers for advertising.
CRED is known for its whacky and unique advertising. The company has so far leveraged former cricketer and Indian cricket team coach Rahul ‘The Wall’ Dravid as Indiranagar ka gunda and Bollywood hunk Jackie Shroff who secretly loves Zumba, among other celebrities like Govinda, Bappi Lahiri, Madhuri Dixit, Neeraj Chopra and Anil Kapoor. The company’s recent campaign features Anil Kumble, Jhulan Goswami, Sunil Chhetri, MC Mary Kom and Viswanathan Anand who are disappointed when they realise that they have been asked to read a simple script telling the viewers that they can pay multiple bills on the CRED app.
The CRED classified ads campaign has been created by meme marketing agency Youngun .
Content creator Deepak Kumaar took to LinkedIn to share his experience writing these classified ads for CRED with the team at Youngun.
“Most of you all must have already seen these somewhere on Instagram or Linkedin itself,” he says.
“With successful marketing attempts like these, I realised marketing has changed vividly over the past few years and the one thing that is rising with enormous speed is ‘Meme Marketing’. What could be a better way than entertaining people and also educating them?,” he notes.
Storyboard18 has reached out to the team for a comment and the story will be updated as we receive their response.
Thumbs up for CRED advertising
Brands are taking content marketing to the next level and increasingly making ads and campaigns that look less like advertising, chasing instant virality through tactics, gimmicks, meme marketing and whatnot. Typically such campaigns are seeded through users, including influencers, in social media to pick up pace and go viral in a seemingly organic fashion.
Meanwhile, industry executives find the latest piece of CRED advertising unique.
Read More: Meme Marketing 2023: How memes become weapons of virality in a brand’s marketing arsenal
Sambit Mohanty, creative head, McCann Worldgroup thinks this form of print advertising is perfectly fine – it’s a take on what looks like a ‘classified ad’ – usually seen for vehicle sales, matrimonials or sundry personal announcements.
“These ads are usually a blind spot since they appear in the classifieds section of a newspaper. What CRED has smartly done is use this format but in places across the newspaper where they’ll catch your eye. Of course, the copy is cheekily written in first person, to tell you how you can win goodies,” he says, adding, “But overall I like the subversive nature of this credvertising.”