Can crisp insight & offbeat execution deliver OYO’s Raho Mast to an audience of 75 mn?

The world second largest chain of hotels, homes and spaces, OYO, has rolled out its new brand campaign called ‘Raho Mast’. The high impact campaign is live across television, digital and social media channels until 3^rd January to cement OYO’s leadership in the Indian market.

The brand has released three distinct TVCs addressing pain points encountered by customers who are looking for accommodations. Each commercial has a specific audience in mind, looking at young couples, bachelor working-class men, and families respectively. At the end of each campaign OYO position itself as a reliable and trustworthy ‘travel hospitality partner’.

The films have been conceptualised by OYO’s brand team, directed by Hemant Bhandari of ‘Baadhai Ho’ fame, and produced by Chrome Pictures.

The three brand films will be seen across multiple television channels including primetime slots, with a major focus on GEC, Hindi Movies, Hindi News, English News, Music and several regional genre platforms. To increase visibility, glimpses of the campaign will appear on popular Indian entertainment shows like Indian Idol, Bigg Boss and The Kapil Sharma Show. With an aim to reach a whopping 75 million consumers across the country, the campaign will go live across digital and social media channels like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Gaana, among many others. Simultaneously, the campaign will be amplified through an influencer marketing campaign with noted celebrities and social media content creators.

Creative Speak

Kartik Shinde, Associate Creative Director, Tonic Worldwide, feels that the insights picked for all three films are spot on. He added, “Most of us have gone through the trouble of finding the right space in the right place. But what really stood out for me was the background score in the movie date and business trip film and the visual treatment in all three. The casting makes it even more appealing.”

Amyn Ghadiali, Director - Strategy, Gozoop, remarked, “The creative campaign tries to tackle very specific problems by using a dramatised slice of life approach. The value proposition is communicated quite upfront, however, what I found missing was the aspect that OYO Hotels could have focused on online booking rather than prompting to a physical property as that would have been truer to its core value proposition.”

While applauding the overall campaign, both Ghadiali and Shinde had different TVCs as their favourites. One preferred the business trip TVC, while the other was partial towards the movie date TVC. They rationalised that the business trip film delivered on a sharp insight, but the narrative of the movie date film was more fun.

The brand team has also deployed the creative device of using, what Shinde calls, a ‘frameception’. He elaborated, “I’ve seen the ‘frameception’ concept being used earlier in the campaigns. Even MP Tourism has tried something similar. It is not a great differentiator for me, but it is always refreshing to see newer formats of storytelling.”

On the other hand, Ghadiali said, “It definitely makes the content look more immersive if one pays attention to it. In theatres, it will definitely be noticed, however, on mobile there is a high chance it will be missed.”

OYO’s multimedia campaigns fall short of taking advantage of screen dimensions of various devices, but deliver on varied insight and overall production quality. In this case, OYO went with the insight developed by their brand team, once again highlighting the power of in-housing the creative work for a brand. As Ghadiali pointed out, the brand seems less interested in highlighting their in-app booking and looks more keen on showcasing the physical presence of OYO Hotels & Rooms across India. This marks the journey of the brand from a simple hotel aggregator to a leader in the affordable accommodation provider.

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