Ad Review - Cred's campaign over the IPLs

Indian summer can mean many things - Scorching heat, Mangoes, summer holidays, and IPL. And If its a new IPL season, you will definitely find new Cred Ads. Cred is one such company I follow for their ads rather than their original business.

Cred has set an amazing benchmark of using celebrities in a very new way. Traditionally, you see celebrities in 2 ways:

1. Celebrities becoming a character for an Ad: Celebrities are given a character, costume, voice, and look which matches the persona of the desired consumers of the brands.
2. Celebrities playing their own selves: Celebrities are pushed into a situation where they advocate the brand themselves. It reinforces a feeling in viewer that celebrities of such stature are preferring this product, so they themselves should also use it.

But Cred is different. That's also their tagline. Over the years, Cred has used the celebrities in an engaging and entertaining ways.

As these ad campaigns are targeted at IPL, the main audience are the cricket fans. Cricket fans in India are such a broad category of audience such that the messaging should be as precise as possible and not too technical in nature. And as all the major companies target the same window, you have to cut the clutter to stand a chance to capture the mindshare of the customer.

IPL 2020 - Not Everyone gets it:

It was the first IPL campaigns done by Cred. At that time, Cred was literally not introduced to the Indian audience. So, the main messaging used by Cred was just to ask the audience to download Cred. And it further highlighted the fact that not everyone can get the benefits unless they become a member of Cred.

This series of ads conceptualized an Audition process where all these celebrities were performing for endorsing Cred. It used the celebs in their natural setting- highlighting their strength, but in a funnier way.

Though these ads were innovative and fun, it could not match the level of the IPL 2021 campaign which set the benchmark of funny celeb ads in India.

IPL 2021: Great for the good:

IPL 2021 campaign was named "Great for the Good". IPL 2021 campaign was named "Great for the Good". It was one of the few campaigns which has developed a cult following even after years post release of the ads. It was due to the innovative usage of celebrities' public image.

Although the messaging remained common across all ads: the awareness about collecting Cred Coins to earn rewards for credit card payments, the treatment with the celebs is where all the differences were made.

Be it Dravid as an angry man stuck in a traffic, Kapil Dev dressed as Ranveer, or Venkatesh Prasad and Javagal Srinath in a boy bad, these would have been wild dreams even in those celebs' minds.

It has become such a wildly hit phenomena that other companies have also started taking inspirations from it. Case in point: Dream 11 - 3 Idiots campaign for IPL 2023.

(My next blog can be on Dream 11 IPL campaigns - they have also broken through the clutter almost every IPL season)

Coming back to Cred's 2021 IPL Campaign. This particular campaign gave a brand image to Cred that it's a unique company which makes crazy ads, which Cred themselves have recognized it in another campaign in 2023 called "Unreleased Cred Ads". In that campaign, Cred mocked its own concept by making the celebrities not acting crazy in spite of them being in a Cred ad.

This being said, Cred has done it all in its 2021 campaign. What more can they do?

?IPL 2022: Play it different:

?This campaign was mainly about Cred Bounty: a contest to earn various rewards. This time, they took "Nostalgia" as a weapon and played hard on it. When you take nostalgia, the ads not only require the clarity of concepts, but the technical brilliance of setting the mood and taking the viewers to the time period within a 20 second ad. And most of the ads in the campaign did it with ease, especially the Annu Kapoor one.

After a short hiatus in 2023, Cred has started its 2024 campaigns targeted around Cred UPI. 2 hilarious ads have already been released: one with Leander Paes hitting mosquitoes with Mosquito Racket and another one with Ila Arun commenting on the gossips.

I will comment on the whole campaign post this season's end in May. Let's see what's Cred cookin' this season.

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