You think you are lazy? With this digital firm, it pays off to be laid back

To promote LazyPay, PayU India's digital campaign features ads with stand-up comics

Brand: PayU

Budget: Rs 5-7 crore (estimated)

Agency: The Glitch

If online transactions is all about convenience, a less popular take on it would be how it allows us the choice to be lazy. And who better than comedians to help us laugh at our laziness and even be unapologetic about it? PayU, a global online payment service provider, has done just that by playing on laziness to promote a unique product feature called LazyPay which allows deferral of online payments.

The digital campaign comprises eight advertisements featuring the stand-up comics and follows the April launch of the LazyPay — a first-of-its kind premium deferral payment facility for consumers who transact digitally for any amount between Rs 500 and Rs 2,500. The ads include acts by Cyrus Sahukar, Hoezay Covaco, Jeeveshu Ahluwalia, Kaneez Surka and Biswapati Sarkar. In these short clips, the comics tickle the funny bone narrating relatable online experiences such as the frustration of teaching one’s grandmom to shop clothes, ordering food in the middle of the night, fishing for medicine, vegetables or simply wishing to be like an airport luggage because it doesn’t have to go through the dreaded one-time password (OTP). The ads end with the promise of “no more OTP, card details or wallets” and telling the viewer, “Go ahead, be lazy.”

Varun Duggirala, creative head, The Glitch, points out the LazyPay feature is a differentiator in a cluttered e-commerce wallet space. The creative agency chose to focus on how an average individual would view such a product. “All human beings are lazy, even if we may not admit. So we though let’s get people to relate to that laziness and say that it’s ok if you are lazy and don’t want an OTP, or want to defer the payment for 10 days. We felt playing on that emotion and adding entertainment value will make people remember it a lot more, and more than that remember the product attributes. That is also why we got stand-up comedians,” he says, claiming the films are forms of “advertainment” — advertising that is entertaining.

The creative team chose comics who cater to varied audiences and have different takes on laziness. Duggirala adds, “In today’s digital age, stand-up comics are some of the strongest influencers online, as people look at them as airing a point of view which you and I might be shy to put out.” 

Stand-up comedian Kaneez Surka

To drive its marketing initiatives around the theme of laziness further, PayU plans to complement its digital campaign with some outlandish social media extensions, including launching “India’s first product anthem and dance” (the Lazy Anthem and the Lazy Steps), says Abhijit Bhattacharya, head, marketing consumer business, PayU India. “LazyPay as a platform is targeted towards savvy users in the age group of 18-30 years who transact frequently on the Internet and are very active in the digital space.”

He argues that post-demonetisation consumers in India were flooded with the options of a number of wallets and digital platforms which left them confused. “At PayU India we realised a need gap of convenience and premium check-out experience which made transacting digitally an experience akin to that of frequent airport check-ins. Keeping the convenience and premium check-out features at the centre, we devised the #BeLazy campaign.”

The company has set aside $50 million (Rs 3,229 million) for overall product development including marketing and promotion of #BeLazy campaign over the next two years.

According to a report by Boston Consultng Group earlier this year, the digital payments industry in India is expected to reach $500 billion (Rs 32,286 billion) by 2020, with over 50 per cent of Internet users in the country expected to use it by then. Paytm and MobiKwik are the largest companies in the mobile wallet space.