Scarecrow ups the ante on Quikr with Saswata 'Bob' Chatterjee

Scarecrow Communications has unveiled an unusual clutter-breaking campaign for India's leading online classifieds site, Quikr. The campaign features the famous Bengali actor Saswata Chatterjee (unforgettable in his role as Bob Biswas, the cold blooded killer in Kahaani) in a comical role.

In their last campaign Quikr's featured a series of 3 highly disruptive 10 seconders with a sticky audio mnemonic 'Quikrrrrr'. The value proposition was - Quikr helps you buy and sell stuff in minimum time. A missed call to 1800-3000-1000, is all that is required and nothing can be Quikrrr than that! With the second campaign, Quikr aims to reach out to a much wider audience, including those who are not active users of the internet

However, this time, the disruption started with the proposition itself. Quikr is the only online site that helps people transact through a missed call. Quikr has set up an extensive call centre operation that pro-actively calls people after receiving a missed call, understands their specifications and responds with a series of smses containing highly relevant and specific information, that too in minimal time!

Says Raghu Bhat, Founder Director, Scarecrow Communications, "The missed call is a game-changer for the category. The communication too had to be equally fresh and disruptive. We started with an inspired casting - Saswata Chatterjee, (Bob Biswas of Kahani). Although he appeared in Kahani for 10 minutes, he has acquired cult status. The audience is hungry to see more of him and Quikr is the brand that brings him back and naturally benefits hugely. Secondly, his calibration of deadpan comic timing is perfect and he is undoubtedly, one of the finest actors in India today. Even the plot had to have a quirk worthy of its anagram brand Quikr. We layered it with a raunchy RD-sounding soundtrack (with words like...Ranno ki life ka... ek hi makaam, tera badan hai...mera teerath sthan) in the background that punctuates key moments of the film." He goes on to add, “Quikr is a high recall brand today, thanks to its quirky personality and sticky audio mnemonic. The film is loaded with nuances, a crazy soundtrack and is based on a solid insight. We hope this will generate as much conversation as the last campaign.”

Like the first set of advertisements, there is a touch of humour in the new campaign as well. It is based on the solid insight that sellers (especially of high value items like cars, homes) will go to any lengths to get the best value from the sale. Saswata is depicted as one such desperate seller who is clearly on the brink of desperation to find a reliable tenant for his flat.

The campaign was unveiled after a high engagement teaser phase on social media that made use of Saswata’s cult status to the hilt. First, a mysterious playlist titled ‘Bob is Back!’ with 5 short teaser videos, was seeded in Youtube and Facebook as several conversations began about what Bob is possibly upto, a hashtag #WhatisBobUpto was promoted on Twitter.

It struck the right chord and people came with all sorts of tweets ranging from ‘Being Naughty at 40”, ‘Praying to God that Big Boss is renamed Big Bob’ to ‘selling his gun on Quikr’! The final ad will also be making a splash on various Quikr social media properties before it actually airs on TV.

Speaking on the launch of the new ad campaign, Aparna Mahesh, Brand Head, Quikr.com said, “We at Quikr believe that everything can and should be made simpler. Our research showed us that for many people in India, the act of posting an ad online is daunting and perceived as time-consuming. With that in mind, we launched the Missed Call service, which is sure to open up our platform to a huge number of users who have never tried us in the past.”

Says Arunava Sengupta, Founder Director, Scarecrow Communications,"Saswata is very choosy about what he works on. He opted for Quikr because he liked the bizarreness of the plot. Quikr is a street-smart brand. Its spends are less than its competitors but it enjoys disproportionate Share of Mind. That's because it has never played safe in its communication."

Says Manish Bhatt, Founder Director, Scarecrow Communications, "Our last campaign for Quikr created Quikrrrr-mania. We are confident that this campaign also will create huge buzz. Hats off to the client for buying such work."

The campaign was directed by Naren Multani of Equinox Films and was shot in Kayani cafe, in Mumbai.

The campaign that has already resulted in overwhelming audience response on the company's phone lines and twitter, also includes cinema, cinema innovations, media innovations, digital and ambient media as part of the mix. 

Campaign Credits:

Creative: Raghu Bhat, Manish Bhatt, Sarvesh Raikar

Account Mgt: Arunava Sengupta, Sukhvinder Wikhoo

Client: Pranay Chulet (Founder CEO), Aparna Mahesh

Production House: Equinox Films

Director: Naren Multani

Producer: Manoj Shroff, Sia Bhuyan

Music: Rohan Vinay