Ola boat – was that a good idea?

I went to Chennai on November 17th evening for a day. I had seen pictures of waterlogged streets and knew that several businesses had invoked emergency measures. People were advised to stay indoors. And everyone told me that I would have to swim or ride a boat as no cabs were operating. I called up my hosts who assured me that the claims were hugely exaggerated. While the low lying areas were indeed affected by the waterlogging, but there were many parts of the city that had a business-as-usual look.

As if to test my resolve someone sent me a screen shot of Ola cabs who purportedly were now offering a boat service to get around the city. Look at the way humor works in the social media world. Venkatesh Krishna who tweets as @VenkatTweetz modified the Ola screen shot and suggested that a boat service would be more effective instead. That screenshot seemed to have gone viral. So there was no reason to suspect that it was someone’s idea of a joke.

When Ola employees heard about it, they decided to take the idea seriously. The result was a free boat service in the affected areas. Ola deployed boats in waterlogged and partially submerged areas on the basis of information from the Fire and Rescue department. Professional rowers, a few employees and some fishermen were brought in to rescue people in these boats. The boats also provided much needed food and drinking water to the flood affected Chennaites.

Emotions hide unstated needs

What impact would this gesture have on the brand? When people actually saw the boats with rescuers wearing Ola gear, their initial disbelief turned to delight. <click to see>

“Ola has launched a boat service in flood-hit Chennai. Joke is now strategy #ChennaiFloods” said @madversity

Ola has launched a boat service in flood-hit Chennai. Joke is now strategy #ChennaiFloods

— Madhavan Narayanan (@madversity) November 18, 2015

On reports of the boats charging up to Rs1000/-, the next quip came quickly,

In flood-hit Chennai, Ola is charging Rs 1000 per boat trip, says @moodanmani -- This is truly a case of "surge pricing"

When Ola ran the boat service in response to the idea the brand positioned itself as an innovative company that responded to the stated needs of customers. Unstated needs that are often buried deep in emotions.

In the digital world speed of response is a differentiator. Real time responses matter. That is where the brand scored. But…

Emotional payoffs cannot be priced

Using the boats, Ola rehabilitated its drivers and their families, who were stranded in their homes without food and electricity. They supplied these families with essential food supplies. This gesture clearly recrafts the relationship with the customer base and moves it from a transactional level to tugging at the heart. But once it is connects emotionally, the pressure is to stay authentic.

Some of the boatmen were charging money to ferry people. These were not the boats that Ola deployed. But in the mind of the consumer, the boats are associated with Ola thanks to the social media going viral with the news. So when a boatman charges for a ride, the assumption is Ola is making a fast buck on someone’s misery. It is like being presented with a bill after a meal at a friends’.

Should Ola have run boats?

They were quick to see the potential of the idea (even if it was suggested as a joke) to address those affected by the floods. They leveraged some employees, some professional boatmen and a few fishermen and ran 18 boats. Maybe they should have limited the effort to what the employee volunteers could manage. Trying to scale it up, left some bruises on the brand – even if that was unintended.

But you know what? If I was Ola, I would do it again.

As they say it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

Do you agree?

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