How Zoomcar is transforming the urban landscape with its personal mobility solutions

Zoomcar recently rolled out its first ever 360-degree brand campaign in India, which attempts to encapsulate its true ethos as a peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace. The campaign, titled #ApniHiSamjho, depicts the warmth of Host-Guest connects.

‘Apni Hi Samjho’ articulates the true spirit of the platform. A campaign should ultimately tell a powerful story. It is all about the narrative. At its core, it is about translating this story for people in such a way that we demonstrate the value that we create for them. Whether a guest or a host, people come to the Zoomcar platform with the expectation that it can serve their requirements. This campaign helps satisfy this need, whether a guest is embarking on a trip or a host is pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity.

While the Zoomcar campaign kicked off with a flourish on TV during the ongoing IPL 2023, the 360 campaign has been released across mediums, ensuring that the brand’s story remains consistent.

In an interaction with Adgully, Naveen Gupta, Country Head India, Zoomcar, elaborates on the #ApniHiSamjho campaign, building the Guest-Host connect, the key communication strategies of the brand, and much more.

Could you tell us about the #ApniHiSamjho campaign and how it reflects the ethos of Zoomcar as a peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace?

The #ApniHiSamjho campaign is one of our first large-scale brand campaigns focused on establishing the guest-host connect. ApniHiSamjho is the overall tagline of the campaign that articulates the true spirit of our platform. We believe a brand campaign should ultimately tell a powerful story. At its core, it is about translating this story for people in such a way that we demonstrate the value that we create for them. Whether you are a guest or a host, you come to the Zoomcar platform with the expectation that we can help serve your requirement.  We believe this campaign helps satisfy this need, whether a guest is embarking on a trip or a host is pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity. We want the guests to focus on enjoying their journey when they rent a car which is possible if they think of the car as their own – this helps them create memorable moments as the car becomes a part of the experience. The hosts, on the other hand, would want the guests to have a wonderful experience and ensure the car is safe – if the guest treats the car as if it was their own.

While we kicked off with a flourish on TV during the IPL, the 360 campaign isn’t limited to TV alone. We now have a very active brand presence across digital mediums, top airports, and various prominent outdoor properties. Overall, across these mediums, we're ensuring that the story remains consistent. This repetition across mediums is what builds memorability and helps satisfy our broader awareness requirement.

What was the inspiration behind the campaign and how did you come up with the idea?

The campaign, #ApniHiSamjho, depicts the warmth of Host-Guest Connect. We wanted to announce our new marketplace business model to our existing base and potential customers via our campaign. While deciding on what will be the best way, after multiple iterations it was very clear that we have to capture the moment of car exchange from host to guests. This is the exact point in time where the magic of exploring your favourite car from a host nearby unbundles.

How did you ensure consistency of the campaign story across different mediums such as TV, digital, airports, and outdoor properties?

We are doing this by ensuring the story told in our TVCs, echoes through all the channels.

Digital - Our creative team has ensured the visual aspect and copy communicate the same guest-host story that our TVCs are telling.

Airports/ outdoors - Our OOH partner has done a brilliant job in ensuring that we’re conveying the same story here by having our guests and hosts together in the design, sharing smiles.

Influencer marketing - Our TVCs are 30-40 seconds long, and a condensed version of these stories is also being amplified by hundreds of nano influencers. We are also working with 2 great influencers to bring the guest-host story to life for an audience that may have missed out on it during IPL.

What are the key values that Zoomcar aims to communicate through the campaign?

As mentioned, whether you are a guest or a host, you come to the Zoomcar platform with the expectation that we can help serve your requirement. From offering a wide variety of cars to keyless entry, the importance of ratings to a 2-way chat between Host and Guest. We also wanted to appeal to budding entrepreneurs to host their cars on Zoomcar and earn their second income.

Could you share any specific success metrics or feedback you have received since launching the campaign?

We are still early on in the campaign to measure specific success metrics, we are, however, working with a leading research analysis brand that will provide us with the specific success metrics by the end of the campaign.
How does Zoomcar differentiate itself from other car-sharing platforms in the market?

At Zoomcar, we aim to fundamentally transform the urban landscape in India and emerging markets through the introduction of affordable, shared personal mobility solutions that address the pressing problems of congestion, affordability, and air quality at scale. Zoomcar has a strong India focus with global ambitions for growth and scale and a strong defensible market position. Founded in 2013, Zoomcar has pioneered car sharing across emerging markets. With its asset-light marketplace-focused business model, the Zoomcar platform connects host vehicle owners with guests who choose from a selection of otherwise idle cars to use for personal, business, and travel needs. With our host program, Zoomcar is creating a network of micro-entrepreneurs through passive income creation. 

Other players in the market operate on a fleet model, which is vastly different and restrictive compared to our guest-host marketplace model.

How has Zoomcar’s business model evolved over the years and what can we expect in the future?

Zoomcar is the leading marketplace for car sharing in emerging markets, with over 20,000 cars on its technology-driven platform across India, Southeast Asia, and Egypt. Zoomcar empowers host entrepreneurs to safely and easily share their cars to earn additional passive income. Guests in the Zoomcar community enjoy a diverse, affordable selection of cars to unlock memorable driving experiences with friends and family. Zoomcar currently operates across more than 50 cities globally and plans to continue building smart, convenient, and sustainable transport solutions for emerging market consumers.

How does Zoomcar ensure the safety and security of its users and their vehicles?

At its core, Zoomcar’s primary advantage stems from its continuing focus, from inception, on investing across core technologies such as IoT and machine learning to create a seamless, frictionless user experience for guests and hosts. What sets the company apart is the intense focus on technology, product, and infusing data science to create a disproportionately robust customer experience, which help creates a very sticky customer cohort, both on the guest/ demand side and host/ supply side. We take great care to invest in the technology in the vehicle. We have the custom hardware that we fit in all vehicles to allow for additional safety and security monitoring from remote digital entry through a keyless entry system through your smartphone which is very, very powerful along with having real-time driver behaviour monitoring and also the ability to have a remote engine and mobilisation capability. This gives more peace of mind for that vehicle owner and host, and then also more seamlessness and more frictionless experiences for the guest.

Could you share any exciting developments or plans for the platform shortly?

We are working on a lot of new exciting features and product updates to strengthen our marketplace construct. In the coming months, we will empower our hosts to set discounts, and their prices and also offer extra services like full tank and home delivery options. All these tools are a good conversion mover for our hosts and help give the best experience to the guests. On the guest side, we are also working on creating a very seamless and personalised experience to generate repeat usage. Apart from India, we also have a presence in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Egypt. We are laser-focused on building out scale, density, and supply in these newer markets and continuing to build that network effect in each of these cities. Particularly in Indonesia, which is the biggest of the newer markets because of its size and scale of footprint in the country. We expect to target future expansion opportunities in markets that include SE Asia, Latin America, MENA (Middle East and North Africa), and Sub-Saharan Africa. As Zoomcar takes both early-mover advantage for car sharing in emerging markets, and strong user engagement and growth upside in new and existing markets.