Calling out Scammers in the Festive Season: Truecaller's Win with InMobi

“The festive spirit in India is often perturbed by a spike in spam calls that rob users of their valuable time and money. The best way to beat these calls is by encouraging consumers to take the right action against fraudsters. Through an engaging campaign where simulated incoming call experiences met Johnny Lever’s comedic timing, we drove curiosity and engagement among even the busiest of smartphone consumers, fulfilling our mission of entertainment-based awareness,” said Manan Shah, Director of Marketing Asia, Truecaller.

Scam calls are at an all-time high in India especially during the festive season, robbing many of their wallets and peace of mind. Truecaller plays a pivotal role in helping users identify, block and report such scam calls, saving them from tele frauds. The brand launched #JamTheScam, a marketing initiative featuring the sibling vigilante duo - Jesse and Jamie Lever, in 2020. The Levers turned the tables by calling scammers and wasting their time, taking the comical route to spread awareness on serious concerns like tele scams.

The brand then launched #JamTheScamReturns with Johnny Lever, the legendary comedian, who joined the fun with his kids in jamming scammers, later in 2021. The brand aimed to spread the word on its new #JamTheScamReturns series among Indian smartphone users through meaningful marketing.

Taking this forward, Truecaller decided to launch an innovative mobile campaign that captured the eyeballs of audiences and effectively engaged them while raising awareness against the menace of spam calls during the festive season.

To execute a powerful campaign, Truecaller partnered with InMobi and Wirality Media Pvt Ltd. By leveraging InMobi’s precision targeting and state-of-the-art creative suite the brand delivered an educative message through a comical sequence.

Leveraging InMobi Audiences, the brand aimed to reach out to the busiest users in India who were most hassled by spam calls, and identified business professionals, upscale residents, corporate decision-makers, and frequent flyers as the target audiences. By leveraging accurate location intelligence, the brand polygon-mapped their key areas of interest and successfully synced user behavior in the virtual and real worlds.

Creating Spam Awareness with a Simulated Incoming Call Experience

Truecaller designed a full-screen interstitial, simulating the experience of receiving an incoming call on the screens of ad viewers. Leveraging advanced visuals, the brand designed this innovative experience with instant buttons to answer or decline the incoming call.

Declining the call

The users who perceived the simulated phone call as an unwanted call, or spam, declined the call. Upon declining, a short 20-second #JamTheScamReturns video appeared on their mobile screens, depicting the pivotal role Truecaller plays in identifying spam/ scam calls.

Answering the call

The users who chose to answer the simulated phone call were shown a full-screen, interstitial video educating them about spam calls and how Truecaller can help detect them and take appropriate action of blocking or reporting the call. The video drew attention to the fact that over 8.5 billion scam calls ruined the festive spirit for residents across the country, and with Truecaller, one can expertly avoid the scam this year.

Popularizing #JamTheScamReturns

Upon watching the 20-second video, users could click on the CTA ‘Watch video on YouTube’ to watch the full-length videos of the #JamTheScamReturns series, where they could get their dose of Johnny Lever’s entertaining performance while learning how Truecaller can indeed deliver spam-safe experiences

The engaging mobile experience effectively spread the word on spam calling, raised awareness on taking appropriate action with Truecaller, and popularized #JamtheScamReturns on mobile. The campaign reached 3.6 million unique users reached in just 1 week, delivering a massive 3.8x engagement compared to industry benchmarks. 1 in 3 engaged users watched the full video of #JamTheScamReturns.