Rapido has seen exponential growth of 100% in registrations on the app: Amit Verma

After a successful campaign with Ranveer Singh and Allu Arjun, Rapido is back with the next series of TVCs with Rajkummar Rao and Jiiva. The latest ad-films see Rajkummar Rao playing a regular office goer called Rastogi, while Jiiva plays Sundar, an employee. Both these characters reap the benefits of reaching the office early, whilst saving money using Rapido’s bike-taxis. These real-life characters are also expected to resonate and strike the chord with the audience.

Over the years, Rapido has carved out a niche for itself in the ride hailing industry and is spearheading the bike-taxis space.

In conversation with Adgully as part of the TALKING INSIGHTS series, Amit Verma, Head of Marketing and Growth, Rapido, speaks about how Rapido has grown over the years to become the largest bike-taxi player in the country, the insights from their latest campaign featuring Rajkummar Rao and Jiiva, leveraging IPL, and more.

Rapido has seen a booming growth as a service provider in the ride-hailing industry. What expectations does it have from the ongoing IPL season for the ride-hailing industry?

Rapido is spearheading the bike taxi segment in India. Since its inception in 2015, Rapido has built a customer base of over 20 million users, which makes it one of the largest bike taxi players in the country. Due to the ease in the Covid-19 restrictions, people are spending time outdoors and, therefore, using ride-hailing services to commute. This is where we expect our market to grow significantly.

IPL has always been a crowd-puller since its inception, largely due to its mass-appeal and entertaining format. Needless to say, there is more excitement surrounding the 15^th edition of IPL, since it is being held on Indian grounds. With commuters banking on Rapido for usual transport, our bike-taxis or autos are providing an easy alternative mode of travel without burning a hole in the users’ pockets and helping them navigate better in the traffic snarls. Being the enabler of last-mile commuting in an affordable, convenient, comfortable and secure manner, we envisage an overall uptick in demand owing to these factors.

Rapido’s marketing campaigns have been receiving a great response and turning out to be a hit. What are your plans for this IPL season in terms of marketing campaigns?

We have released two TVCs as part of the campaign – #EkDumAaramSe. The ads showcase a film each for the Hindi speaking market (HSM) with Rajkummar Rao in Hindi and Bengali and for the non-Hindi speaking market (Non-HSM) featuring Jiiva in Tamil and Telugu. The TVCs have been released on OOH, radio, TV, and various other digital platforms across India. The campaign targets 14 markets across the length and the breadth of the country. With the launch of our campaign with IPL, our focus and marketing mix will include different media platforms, with a focus on regional communication since we have a strong presence in Tier 2 and 3 markets.

We are humbled by the success that we have achieved for our erstwhile campaigns and this motivates us further to carry on the momentum with equal gusto. Our goal is to make Rapido bike taxi services synonymous with a low-priced, quick and comfortable mode of commute and we want to instil the same message year on year. We want to keep focussing on spreading brand awareness as a major goal this year as well. Our celebrity campaigns will continue this term on a bigger scale for higher impact. 

Bringing in leading names like Rajkummar Rao and Jiiva to your ad campaigns during the in-match ad space, how are you looking to expand your TG and markets?

One of the USPs of Rapido has been its presence across India in over 100 cities. Both our celebrity endorsers have established a huge connection with our main TG segment across India. The characters whom they depict, that is, Rastogi played by Rajkummar Rao and Sundar played by Jiiva, are regular people that the audiences can relate to. We highlighted the commuting woes faced by daily commuters and used simple analogies stated by these characters to explain to them our use-case benefits through a light-hearted, entertaining, and engaging take. Rastogi and Sundar simply give our customers advice to avoid the hassles of travelling via public transport, beating the traffic, and reaching their destinations comfortably and on time with Rapido bike taxis. With the launch of our IPL campaign, we aim to reach out to a wider audience and define our presence pan-India.

How has the response for the campaign been?

The campaign has been very well received by the audience and translated directly into higher business metrics. We witnessed our highest single-day bookings and registrations during the campaign, post-pandemic. We recorded an exponential growth of 100% in registrations on the app and have garnered unprecedented reach as daily active app users increased over 40%. In addition, we even got a boost in our brand health metrics, with a huge uplift in brand salience amongst our TG segments. 

Are you looking for more spaces like IPL to market the brand?

Given that India is a country where cricket is considered as a religion, there is immense scope for brand promotions around cricket and movies on newer platforms. We are always on the lookout for new opportunities for brand partnership in order to connect with our masses through every touchpoint in their lives for transforming the daily commuting experience for them.