 "Campaign logic: A case against 'jugaad'")
Brand: Sulekha.com
Budget: Rs 10-12 crore
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather (O&M)
Ditch "jugaad", embrace professional solutions - that's the plea of Sulekha.com, the web-based discovery and decision-making platform for organised local services, in its latest ad campaign. The campaign shows a shocked bride discovering the "jugaad" (quick fixes) carried out by her husband as she steps into her new home. The television commercial (TVC) created by Ogilvy & Mather (O&M) shows the man resorting to a host of quick-fix solutions to put together basic household amenities. For instance, his bride finds that he has placed a bucket in place of shower and is drawing power from the battery of a motorbike parked in the backyard to light up their room. Soon, the quick fixes start to go horribly wrong and the angry bride threatens to return to her parents. As the crestfallen husband looks on, the bride pulls out her smartphone and logs on to Sulekha.com seeking expert help to fix their power and water woes.
The campaign takes a dig at the age-old and the much-loved concept of "jugaad", the quintessential Indian resourcefulness to manage things with limited means. So, what prompted Sulekha.com to take an anti-jugaad stand?
"In the past, the word jugaad had a positive connotation because we as a country, society and people were enormously resource constrained. Therefore, we admired actions or solutions that helped save a lot of money," says Satya Prabhakar, founder and CEO of Sulekha.com. However, today's India is very different. "Today, we (consumers) hanker for quality. We don't mind spending additional money to get the best services and get problems resolved in a competent and professional manner."
This campaign is Sulekha's first in eight years and follows a technology revamp. In the intervening years, it has put in place a strong mobile platform that enables automated search and connects users to service providers. The campaign, mounted at a cost of Rs 10-12 crore, aims to make Sulekha.com synonymous with the huge local services market in India, pegged at Rs 13,307 billion.
Sulekha.com reached out to 3,000 users to map the competitive landscape and gauge user preferences of choosing a service partner. The research-cum-survey covered people in the 20-45 age group. The survey suggests consumers experience sheer inconvenience and pain while looking for a suitable service provider resulting in procrastination and makeshift solutions.
Based on the findings, O&M used a very Indian cultural phenomenon as a creative springboard to dramatise the adverse impact of amateurish creations at home. The message is that home owners can avail of expert help on Sulekha.com. "Instead of preaching or taking on a serious tone we chose to influence behaviour change by making our audience laugh at themselves, and their acceptance of jugaad which deep down they know is far from perfect," says Tithi Ghosh, senior vice-president and head of advertising, O&M.
Ghosh says the campaign is aimed to be a clutter breaker in a communication landscape dominated by urban chic. It aims to help increase brand awareness and enable the brand stage a grand comeback in mass media. The rural setting and characters have been incorporated to stand out among urban-centric commercials, says Prabhakar. Sulekha.com attracts traffic from a cosmopolitan audience. Its highest app downloads come from the national capital region, followed by Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.
The TV-led campaign has been amplified through digital media. Sulekha.com has urged Twitter users to narrate their jugaad failure stories. The campaign hashtag #AntiJugaad has triggered conversations on the micro-blogging site and helped Sulekha.com reach out to 1.05 million people. Sulekha.com has targeted eyeballs with five microfilms posted on Facebook.
