NEW DELHI: “This campaign, in fact, shows the true power of print and a strong messaging,” Truecaller marketing director - India Manan Shah told us over a telephonic interview around the app’s latest viral campaign #ItsNotOk. The campaign, prompting women to take active actions against spam and phone call harassment, got all the attention for its strong messaging, catchy slogans, and the larger intent to make the society safer for women. It has been created and conceptualised by Thinkster. 

Originally conceptualised four years ago in association with MediaMonks (then WhiteBalance), the campaign suddenly became a sensation on social media, surprisingly when the brand was actually running it only in print and select out-of-home locations. While Truecaller was not ready for this kind of response, Shah admitted that they are going to give serious consideration to print in the marketing mix from here on out. 

Shah shared, “The campaign has been in existence for the past four years and we have been running it on digital platforms annually. It always got a good response but this time the virality just went through the roof. Interestingly, we did not even put the campaign on digital platforms for quite some time. It was headlined via print, OOH, and the  TVCs, which got an amazing response.” 

He added that seeing the public’s reaction, they are now planning to extend the print run and add more publications to the mix. The campaign will be followed by the next leg of communication around women’s day (March 8) with a bigger message to deliver. 

“Initially, it was planned to run for two weeks, just in the second half of January in eight publications including TOI, ET, Daily Thanti, Vijay Karanataka, etc. But we are now planning to extend its duration and rope in more vernacular publications. Also, originally the creatives ran only in the English language, but we are now in the process of getting them translated to several regional languages as well,” he said. 

Shah noted that the campaign has changed their perception towards how they saw print and television as advertising mediums, and how the road ahead will be about trying to find the perfect equilibrium among their different avenues of ATL advertising.

“I think digital has become very crowded as a medium now. You can release your campaigns and just hope that it is capable of holding the audience attention amidst the sea of messaging they are bombarded with on a daily basis. It is very challenging to get the organic reach and inorganically also, it becomes an uphill battle with so many campaigns. However, it will obviously remain an integral part of our marketing strategies because of having its own advantages and perks as well. However, we are definitely going to take print and television more seriously going forward. They give you undivided attention, which is very necessary for any brand communication,” he detailed. 

While it is for the first time that Truecaller has taken the print route for its messaging, it has been quite active on television with its earlier campaigns. 

“We are very judicious and cautious with our marketing spends and advertise less frequently. However, television has really helped us grow our user base,” Shah revealed. “One great example is the 2015 campaign with Nawazuddin Siddique. We were wanting to target the consumers in smaller towns where the problem of spam calls is not as much as it is here in the metros. So, we set the whole narrative around how Truecaller can be an enabler of opportunities. It helped us grow our user base in India from 70 million to 100 million.”

The year will witness more frequent brand communications from Truecaller as it’s in the process of introducing some new features on the app, and Shah expects this to be led by a robust print + TV strategy along with digital support. 

“2021 is going to be the year of the brand for us. A big IPO is on the way, we are going to launch several new features and therefore we are going to build more communication around it. The whole idea is to project the brand as an enabler in the users’ life and not just as a caller ID or spam detector. We are definitely willing to invest more in TV and print ads with digital enabling the communication,” he signed off.