MakeMyTrip, India’s leading travel company unveiled its new campaign with its brand ambassadors Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt today.In line with the company’s aggressive efforts to tap into the hotel bookings segment and further build on its leadership position, the new brand campaign aims to drive consumers to shift from offline to online for hotel bookings. As part of this campaign and in a move to further strengthen its brand imagery, the company has also refreshed its logo.
The hotels segment in India is underpenetrated and highly fragmented. Over the last year, the market has exploded as a result of increasing mobile penetration and adoption.As per a recent report by Millward Brown on the Indian hotels segment, MakeMyTrip emerged as the leader with 25% online hotels market share among all OTAs. As the market leader, the company therefore is looking at category expansion by tapping audiences who are not in the online space as yet.
The campaign highlights compelling & relevant benefits of booking hotels on MakeMyTrip such aswidestrange of hotels to choose from, great deals, trust &reliability – all of which are key drivers of online hotel bookings.The high decibel national multi media 360 degree campaign will heavily be promoted on TV, Radio, Outdoor, Social Media and Digital Platforms from 20thMarch.
Rajesh Magow, Co-Founder and CEO-India said, “The year 2015 saw the online hotel bookings market opening up due to smartphone penetration and better bandwidth. At MakeMyTrip, we have witnessed phenomenal growth in our India standalone hotels business. In fact, in Q3 2015-16 alone, the transactions for standalone hotels booked on mobile increased by 756.4% year-on-year. We believe that this is just the beginning. The Indian hotels market is still highly underpenetrated and fragmented and we have made aggressive efforts to tap into this segment. Our current campaign is also reflective of our larger business strategy of rapidly growing our hotels business. With this campaign, we seek to bring new customers into the online hotel category .Our value proposition is that whatever be the customer need, they can find a hotel of their choice on MakeMyTrip – quicker and cheaperand our new campaign completely resonates with this philosophy.
Commenting on the new campaign, Saujanya Shrivastava, CMO, MakeMyTrip said “As market leaders, we have taken on the task of online hotel category expansion. The campaign seeks to catalyze the shift of offline to online by providing tangible reasons to non-users and fence sitters to come to MakeMyTrip for their hotel booking requirements.
The campaign marks the debut of our new brand ambassadors Ranveer and Alia. They truly represent the new age Indians – confident, bold and dynamic. They are a great fit with the brand and we are sure that through this campaign, we will also inspire more of India to travel!
Talking about the new logo, Saujanya added, “MakeMyTrip has become a mainstay for Indian travellers, has strong equity and has fuelled the travel ambitions of customers. The new logo is a reflection of an ecosystem that has evolved over the past decade – younger audiences, high mobile penetration and high customer propensity to undertake leisure travel. The new logo is younger, fresh and future ready.”
Commenting on becoming the company’s brand ambassador, Ranveer Singh said, “I have always had the wanderlust in me since my teens. I believe travelling is the best way with which one can broaden their horizons. If there is one thing that I would want to do with my life-it is to travel the world, see new places, meet new people and learn about new cultures. Once you have got wanderlust in your blood, you have got it for life! I am extremely happy to be associated with MakeMyTrip, the leading name in the industry, to fuel the passion amongst young Indians travelling the world and look forward to a memorable trip with MakeMyTrip.”
Speaking about the association, Alia Bhatt said, “MakeMyTrip has brought the world to the tip of our thumbs. I love travelling and I look forward to an incredible journey with MakeMyTrip.”
The campaign will have high visibility and impactful 360 degree approach, activating every possible touch point with the consumer. It will be supported by an all rounded TVC campaign including GECs, News channels and high impact print exposures and a prominent presence across the IPL. There will be an aggressive and sharply targeted outdoor plan; along with activations in the digital platforms as well.
The story of the characters in the campaignhas been brought to life by Publicis Capital, directed by Amit Sharma. Talking about the creative concept, Bobby Panwar, Managing Director, South Asia, Publicis Worldwide said, “We focused on a singular fact that the brief pointed to – a large part of travellers prefer to walk into a hotel and book. They believe that they can get a better deal ‘directly’. The idea was create dissonance in these over confident travellers and dramatically highlight the inadequacy of this ‘direct’ approach while reinforcing the MMT advantage. The presence of Ranveer and Aliya allowed us to create the histrionics required for this dramatization.”
Credit roll:
- Client: MakeMyTrip
- Creative Agency: Publicis Worldwide
- National Creative Director: Joy Mohanty
- Production house: Chrome Pictures
- Director (film): Amit Sharma
- Producer: Poonam Wahi
- Voice Over: (if any) Ranveer Singh
- Duration: 40 secs
- Language: Hindi, Telegu, Tamil and Kannada
The TVCs will be on air for a period of eight weeks on GECs, news channels and movie channels.
