OLX India is an online classifieds website where people can list items for sale, buy or exchange products and avail of services among various categories such as books, electronics, vehicles, real estate etc. OLX India has been running a series of television commercials with a common underlying theme – “Sab Kuch Bikta Hai” for over a year now. The campaign is known in advertising circles as the “bech de” campaign.
The portal has taken forward strongly its identity of a thriving marketplace, one on which “Buyers meet Sellers” in its ads. However, the execution of this brand positioning is distinct from those of its competitors, most evidently Flipkart. Indian audiences and consumer buying trends are strongly driven by emotion. OLX India has played on this insight smartly by creating a series of engaging and interesting storyboards to drive home its “Sab Kuch Bikta Hai” message.
Having bagged the creative duties for OLX India in June, 2011, Saatchi and Saatchi’s Sourabh Mishra, chief strategy had said, “The task for the TVC was to make OLX.in the first name that people think of when they want to sell stuff. Our interaction with people showed that there is an element of hesitation, almost embarrassment that they have when selling personal belongings. Yet there is a strong desire to get the best price for whatever they sell. The idea was born when we reconciled these seemingly conflicting findings to arrive at the thought that ‘everything sells at the right price.”
One of the first OLX ads based on this understanding is the “Bike” ad, involving a situation with two Indian brothers. The younger of the two is on his laptop in the living room and asks the elder one whether he would like to sell his old bike. Nostalgia kicks in immediately, with the elder brother reflecting on all the good experiences he has had since he bought it. Suddenly, a dramatic turn of events occurs. The brother on the laptop reveals a buying price of Rs 19000/- on OLX, which immediately causes him to forego all emotional attachments and sell the bike on OLX.
The same theme of the brothers has been adopted again in a recent ad about “Baby Cots” released in early 2012. The elder brother is shown with a baby and the younger one remarks on the lack of space in the house. The younger brother sells all the furniture in the house to make space in the house, and replaces it with new furniture including a cot and other furniture for the baby, all bought on Olx.in.
This crafty “bech de” campaign idea is based on a combination of an owners emotional attachment to his possessions and a never ending Indian fetish for a good bargain. It is noticeable that OLX India’s ads are of a longer duration, between the range of 20 to 30 seconds each. Competitors such as Quikrr and Flipkart seem to have taken a shorter approach, with hard hitting but simple 10 seconders. Each approach has had its pros and cons, but OLX India’s definitely seems like the riskier route. It is common knowledge among e-commerce portals that the mindset of a user is very functional. Most users make the transaction and are off – there is not much scope to form an emotional connect with a brand. OLX India has gone against this with its theme based ads.
Amarjit Batra, OLX India country head had commented on the “bech de” campaign in early 2012, “Our core value proposition of ‘Individuals using OLX to sell personal goods that they don’t need or use’ comes out beautifully from these new TV ads. The use of same cast in all the films implies the huge need among every Indian Family to solve their daily problems of buying, selling products and services locally. With OLX they simply have to tell their friends and relatives to ‘BechDe’ “.