Exclusive | On a fast ride: Western Union's Rajesh Mehta

There was something to cheer for India at the recently concluded Cannes lions Festival 2012. Although in terms of metals tally of 14, our performance may be less impressive than previous years, we can atleast bask in the light of some gold. One of the first Gold winners this year was the outdoor campaing on Western Union done by McCann Erickson. “It was an absolute delight,” says Rajesh Mehta, Dieretor, Marketing, Western Union. To think that categories like financial services cannot support cutting age creative is wrong feels Rajesh Mehta. On the contrary it is It is always about how you approach a consumer insight and want to communicate your product strengths.

 

Adgully caught up with Rajesh Mehta sometime back to know his views on the win and the thought that went in the creation of the campaing. The following is the excerpt of the conversation.

 

 

Rajesh Mehta (RM): Necessity is the mother of invention.  We were limited by the medium and so had to find a way to make that our strength. And so we decided that if we have to claim fast, why not give our customers a demo of how fast even before they reach the outlet.

 

 

RM: Western Union is the fastest way to transfer money. Western Union needed to own this claim in the minds of the customers.

 

 

RM: Outdoor was the lead and the only medium for this campaign. We placed these around our high-traffic money transfer outlets .

 

 

RM: The basic premise of Western Union, which is money transfer to any part of the world in the fastest and easiest way is captured brilliantly in the campaign. The fact that the billboard has a different image from a different angle communicates the essence of Western Union which is money transfer. ‘Franklin Gandhi’, ‘Queen Mao’ and ‘Lincoln Fahd’ is just a perfect association to Money and thereby money transfer.

 

 

RM: Each execution needed to be painstakingly created. There were rounds and rounds of tests to make sure that the two images were distinctly seen from near and far. It took over 2 months to get the perfect execution.

 

The billboards sites, itself, needed to be carefully chosen for each location as you needed them to not just be around the key outlets but the approach to the billboard needed to be straight and the billboard needed to be visible from a distance.

 

 

RM: It was absolutely delightful to know that we at Western Union represented the first Gold Win in the year 2012 at the Cannes. Winning a Gold at a global level is a prestigious experience. Nothing can be more prestigious than receiving accolades at a global level. We stood out among 4843 entries across 87 countries that were received in the OOH category.  And to add to that we didn’t just win at Cannes but we won the GOLD at Cannes. To have stood out among the rest was just exciting.

 

 

RM: Western Union money transfer being a financial services company is assumed to have limited scope of providing cutting edge creative work. But we knew we had to reach the consumers and connect with them and hence the team of Western Union and the creative agency worked together to pull out a simple yet thought provoking campaign