Digital payments platform FreeCharge has launched a brand campaign comprising two TVCs conceptualised by Lowe Lintas.
In a role-reversal, the films portray youth as more responsible and pointing out parents’ wasteful spends.
One of the TVCs features a father and son sitting on a sofa at home, relaxing. The father, fidgeting with his phone, sends a message to a group of which his son is also a part. The son looks at the picture of a infant with a 'Good morning' message and asks who it is. He realises that father that the older man has randomly taken it off the internet. The father also sends him a five-minute video of a peacock dancing, and tells the questioning young man that there's one more coming his way. The boy decides it’s about time, and tells him that the money he's wasting on data by sending these useless pictures, could be saved for his future instead. The older man wears a guilty expression as a voice over says, “Ab fizool kharche ka charge papa pe lagao, aur pao amazing prepaid offers when you recharge on Freecharge” (Now blame your father for spending uselessly).
The film featuring a young woman and her mother follows on similar lines. The older lady cuts vegetables while watching a cookery show, while the daughter is busy on her phone. When told that they’re having cooking ladies finger, the girl is visibly disappointed. She asks her mother whether she's learnt anything from watching the kind of cookery shows, and adds that if she doesn't want to go beyond cooking daal she shouldn't waste money on subscribing to cookery channels. The Freecharge pitch follows.
Ashish Virmani, head, marketing, FreeCharge, said, “FreeCharge as a brand understands youth and their needs deeply. With FreeCharge, they just don't recharge but in a way FreeCharge helps them solve their problems smartly. With this campaign, the youth has evolved to the point where they can charge their parents for being spendthrift. This campaign will be an integrated marketing plan leveraging TV, digital and radio primarily and aims to build the already strong appeal for the brand.”
Arun Iyer, CCO, Lowe Lintas, said, “For the launch phase of the campaign, we had established Freecharge as a brand that frees young people of various money-related charges placed on them by their parents. In this phase, we thought we'd flip the dynamics of this relationship. The young Freecharge user is a step ahead of the game and knows how to save so well, that in addition to freeing himself/herself of all charges of being spendthrift, s/he can now in fact, go ahead and place the same charge on his/her parents.”
The campaign will also straddle radio and digital.
Credits
Client: Freecharge
Creative agency: Lowe Lintas
CCO: Arun Iyer
Production house: Early Man Films
