Exclusive | Going beyond gender based stereotypes, Fastrack's #Sorryforwhat campaign

Fastrack, a brand that has been aggressively dealing and catering to the ever changing demands of Youth, very recently broke through the gender based stereotypes by the #SorryForWhat campaign which hit the billboards on 15th December, 2014. With bold visuals showcasing an unapologetic disregard for what is considered mainstream style and lifestyle.

To know the story behind this creative and innovative campaign, Adgully caught up with Hemal Panchamia, Marketing Head, Fastrack.

In this campaign, Fastrack uses a straight forward line, ‘Sorry for what?’ to defy the norm and portray an unapologetic disregard for what is considered mainstream style and lifestyle. The campaign’s bold visuals say to hell with the stone-cold painted faces and perfect bodies. Here are a bunch of youngsters who are making their own lifestyle choices.

Speaking about the rationale behind the campaign, he said, “We at Fastrack constantly innovate to connect with our audience. We believe in speaking their language and resonating with their thoughts. The Sorry for What campaign does exactly this. We used a straight forward line ‘Sorry for what?’ to portray an unapologetic disregard for what is considered mainstream style and lifestyle. Young people today believe in making their own lifestyle choices and not conforming to gender based stereotypes.”

When asked about the brief that was given to the agency Panchamia said, “We told the agency that the one attribute of the youth that we wanted to focus on was being unapologetic.”

The campaign was launched primarily as an OOH campaign during the last month of 2014. However, they have extended the campaign onto their digital platforms through a set of videos created specifically to support the premise of the campaign.

In the era of mainstream advertising and optimizing digital as a priority, what wondered was the fact that this campaign was first launched on OOH platform and on the digital medium lately?  Elaborating on the same he said, “Every year, we launch two OOH campaigns which are product focused. As is the case in all our outdoor campaigns, we showcase our latest products using interesting imagery under a unified theme. This time, we have decided to go a step further that is creating some interesting videos that support the campaign, exclusively for our various digital platforms.”

The campaign was reached out in the top 30 cities across the country. As it is seen and observed the purpose of all their campaigns is to connect with their young audience and speak to them in a language that they understand. “Given the dynamic nature of our audience, we at Fastrack are constantly reinventing and innovating in order to stay relevant to them. For instance, with this campaign, we understand that breaking traditional gender based stereotypes is a hot topic amongst this generation, and we created a campaign to resonate with how they feel about it,” he added.

A brand that has been creating such impactful campaigns may it be ‘Keep Tripin’ or ‘Move On’, would have surely build a bang-on reach among its consumers. When asked about the kind of growth did the brand witnessed in the year gone by, Panchamia said, “We have witnessed a double digit growth in the past year.”

Interestingly, the campaign has received a great amount of traction on their digital platforms since its launch. The premise of breaking through stereotypes has offered the audiences an interesting talk point and conversations are ongoing for each of the campaign’s creatives. “We have recently launched the first of a set of two videos on our digital platforms. The first video, ‘I’ll shave what I want’, is an engaging 30 second video that illustrates the campaign’s philosophy, ‘You are who you are. Be unapologetic.’  We are excited to see how much momentum the campaign will gain through this over the next few weeks,” he stated.

As it is quite visible that advertising has gone beyond the realms of traditional media and there is an upswing of growth of varied mediums of advertising hence out of curiosity when asked Panchamia which medium worked well for Fastrack, he said, “Fastrack has always communicated through different mediums with a specific purpose for each. For instance, television has been used for thematic advertising, OOH to primarily showcase products under a unified theme and digital for campaigns that aim at audience engagement. This formula has worked very well for us over the years.” | By Aanchal Kohlli | Twitter: @aanchalkohli