Charu Kishnani on CarDekho’s campaign strategy around building Trust

CarDekho.com is India’s leading car search venture that helps users buy cars that are right for them. Its website and app carry rich automotive content such as expert reviews, detailed specs and prices, comparisons as well as videos and pictures of all car brands and models available in India. The company has tie-ups with many auto manufacturers, more than 4,000 car dealers and numerous financial institutions to facilitate the purchase of vehicles. CarDekho.com has launched many innovative features to ensure that users get an immersive experience of the car model before visiting a dealer showroom.

Car manufacturers need to stay top of mind and engage with their customers continuously in a category like online marketing of automobiles. For their new film campaign to build trust and create awareness, CarDekho roped in actor Akshay Kumar to endorse their brand. The ad features a unique bond between a father (Akshay Kumar) and daughter, highlighting the true experience of selling a car with CarDekho.

In an exclusive interview with Adgully for their column TALKING INSIGHTS, Charu Kishnani, Senior Vice President - Marketing, CarDekho, speaks about their new ad campaign to highlight the trust factor in all their communication, engaging key audiences through digital, cinema and OOH mediums, and more.

Why should a buyer or a seller come to the CarDekho platform to purchase or sell their car? How are you different from several other online platforms that are in the same business?

CarDekho is the biggest auto-tech player in the country. Through the years we have concentrated on creating a robust business that is built on Trust. CarDekho began as a discovery platform for new cars and a few years ago moved into the business of buying used cars as there was a huge gap in the market and it lacked transparency. Many people were used to traditionally running about to different dealers or mechanics in order to get a sale of their car and get the right price for it. The process seemed tedious and lacked trust.

The whole idea of selling your car on CarDekho is that it is convenient, hassle-free and can be done from the comfort of your home. Our process is transparent and easy. Once you book an appointment on CarDekho, our CarDekho executive inspects your car, does a thorough evaluation and presents it to the customer. The price is then decided based on the evaluation of the car and the best price is offered. The money is transferred instantly and we also take care of the RC transfer.

What is your purpose for this new television film? Who are you trying to target through this film and what is the expectation set?

The whole idea of the new TVC was to build trust and awareness. Akshay Kumar returned to the screens once again in CarDekho’s newest TVC ad film, where he played a doting father planning to sell his car, without missing on life’s precious moments. By trusting CarDekho, Akshay was able to sell his used car for the best price from the comfort of his home.

The ad features a unique bond between a father and daughter, highlighting the true experience of selling a car with CarDekho. Our new campaign though is ‘Bharosa Kar Ke Dekho’. CarDekho doesn’t let you skip quality time with your loved ones by helping you sell your car from your home, bharose ke saath. Through our ad we want people to trust us.

You have roped in Akshay Kumar to endorse the brand. Why did you choose him as the brand ambassador and does he connect well with the brand Cardekho?

This is Akshay Kumar’s second year with us. In the first year itself, we were very happy with the outcome of our campaign, which featured Akshay Kumar. His strong work ethics and hard work resonate strongly with CarDekho. When a brand and brand ambassador share similar core values like trust, it only helps get the message across much more easily to the end consumer. Through his body of work, he is also considered a change agent and that is exactly what CarDekho stands for as well in the auto sector. We are proud to have Akshay on board as a brand ambassador for CarDekho.

What’s going to be your engagement strategy with your audience? How have you approached your media strategy to create a good impact for the campaign?

The idea of our new campaign is to build awareness and that selling a car can be done with a click of a button. We wanted to bring out a short and sweet story that delivers the message and resonates with one and all. We want our consumers to believe in our vision of trust and join us on our journey – be it selling their used car or buying one or simply getting information about all things auto through our site. We decided to launch our campaign during IPL to create a strong impact with our audience pan India and simultaneously launched it on our YouTube channel. The response so far has been great. More people are coming on to the site to find out the value of their car and then make a decision if they want to book a home inspection and then sell their car. Our campaign has been supported by cinema, digital and outdoor launches, all adding great recall value to our brand campaign and the message of Bharosa Kar Ke Dekho.

How do you plan to measure the effectiveness of this campaign? What kind of goals have you set to evaluate the campaign?

Since it is an awareness campaign, we wanted to increase traffic to the site and make people aware that there is a new way of selling their car, which is a very easy process. The campaign to date has helped increase brand searches by approximately 20%-30% and saw a 30%-40% increase in the number of appointments booked by the consumers to sell their cars. This, in itself, is a big highlight for our new campaign. This only goes to show that more and more people are trusting us when it comes to selling cars online and believe in our vision of transparency, trust and offering the best price in a hassle-free manner. Our ad on YouTube has already garnered more than 11.5 million views and has got some great positive reviews.