Product Ads Teardowns ft. RazorpayX, CRED and StockGro!
👋 Hi, I’m Harkirat Singh. I write Inside Startup, a newsletter to help Startup founders and Product growth managers to accelerate their product growth through GTM strategy, growth and marketing experiments.
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An effective product advertisement, like any other form of communication, works best when it strikes a chord in the needs and desires of the receiving consumer - a connection that can be both intuitive and calculated.
Today, I decided to share my analysis of 3 popular Product advertisements that broke the internet in recent times!
Let’s dive straight in 👇
1. RazorpayX payroll ad
"This is so cool!" 🤯
This was my response when I watched this RazorpayX payroll ad!
Humorous and informative at the same time.
So, Let's do a teardown of this ad 👇
Founders have to wear many hats and one of them is managing payroll.
But the payroll process is a nightmare for them. Why?
The whole process is tedious, complicated and requires extra effort.
Manual data entry leads to errors & expensive problems.
Based on the above insights...
Razorpay is targeting startup founders who process payroll manually,
And the goal is to generate interest among the audience to automate their payroll process using Razorpay.
The message delivered through both the music, video as well as final visuals is
“India’s best payroll solution. 3 clicks and payroll fixed”.
After using the product, Founders can get rid of their month-end worries, paperwork & excel sheets.
The ad did a great job of telling its viewers "what to do next?" a.k.a Call to action.
if you noticed the final frame, the ad gave a clear and concise CTA to get started with a 3-month free demo of the product.
This ad ditched the rulebook and presented the “boring” information in a witty way.
Often you’ll see payroll software ads be serious, informative, and filled with abbreviations and jargon.
But here, the tone is casual and funny but not unprofessional.
“Mehta Mehta…Mehta Mehta”
The music is catchy enough that people are compelled to look up the tune.
Usually, you don’t expect such music in an ad targeted at professionals.
Full points to the creative team. 💯
Btw, Do you know what Shashank Mehta is known for?
For sharing the whole truth with the world!
And that’s what he did in this ad as well.
He shared the whole truth about the challenges being faced while managing payroll manually and...
...How RazorpayX improved his productivity by automating payroll.
Plus, Shashank himself is a customer of RazorpayX.
So, he’s promoting what he believes in to be the truth!
If you haven’t watched Shashank Mehta’s Wholetruthfood ad, then please do!
2. Play it different ft. Ravi Shastri | CRED
From Rahul Dravid’s “Indiranagar ka Gunda” to Karishma Kapoor’s nostalgic Nirma ad,
CRED ads never fail to leave us in AWE! 😲
And the marketing king is back with its new ad featuring Veteran cricketer Ravi Shastri.
Let’s find out what made this ad film go viral.
Viewers get bored easily.
To keep them hooked, an ad needs to trigger any of the two emotions: joy and surprise
And this ad was able to crack both. Here’s how👇
This ad opens up with a surprise element: By Recreating the popular pep-talk scene from the movie “Chak De India”.
Ravi Shastri motivates the players by saying they only have 70 minutes left before happy hours are over.
Not even in your wildest dreams, you could imagine Ravi Shastri being a party-loving guy.
If you have noticed, The Rahul Dravid CRED ad also did the same thing by portraying Rahul as an angry young man.
But on the flip side,
The ad also embraced the true personality of Shashtri.
Earlier a lot of people made fun of him for looking careless during India’s matches and often getting clicked with a facial expression that made him look drunk.
So, the CRED ad leveraged this side of Ravi Shastri for creating a buzz!
2/ Almost, all CRED ads have one thing in common: Meme-worthy content.
But what makes an Ad meme-worthy? 🤔
Punch lines and memorable moments
Whether it’s the epic one-liner at the pharmacy shop demanding “2 cough syrups, on the rocks.”
Or it’s 70 minutes speech scene ending with a “Let’s party” dialogue.
Shastri’s hilarious one-liners in the advertisement have already sparked a meme fest.
Another thing that makes the CRED ad impactful tying your brand messaging by showing unexpected things rather than describing features.
The ad’s message, as I understood it, is ‘getting equally rewarding experience on CRED just like Ravi Shastri's invite-only parties”
Although, a lot of people still don’t get it :)
3. Avoid shock in stocks | StockGro
Just 20 seconds.
The time frame within which StockGro conveyed its brand message in a humorous way!
Loved it!
Let’s analyze what stood out for me in their ad campaign.
You must have noticed how the majority of Indians pick shares…
By asking friends and relatives for “tips”.
No fundamental analysis.
Zero research.
Just talk and buy.
And then you hear stories like “I lost 2 lakh within 2 days” from the same people who bought shares after their friend advised him.
That’s the underlying core message of this ad: “Ignore your friend's advice to avoid massive losses in the stock market. Learn investing from experts.”
This ad story revolves around two youngsters using multiple three-pin plugs to connect various electrical appliances, Which causes all appliances to short circuit.
But the question is why youngsters and why did only one of them get the electric shock?
First, the ad is targeting young adults probably from Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. (Similar to StockGro target audience)
These individuals may not have that much money & experience to invest in the Sock market. So they get caught up easily in such scams and invest with no prior knowledge.
Second, if you have noticed the person who first gave the advice to plug in 3 pins gets the electric shock.
I think the idea is to show the audience that investing hacks & tips don’t last long and the consequence is being faced by both the “fake advisors” and their pupils.
Next,
The ad copy did a great job of translating features into benefits while showing the actual product.
The benefits were concise and compelling for the target audience. For example “10 Lakh virtual cash to learn to trade”. (A good way to lure the audience to try the product)
And the best part, no jargon and fancy financial words are used during the ad.
Even the word “Stock and Trading” came only, at a relevant point.
Now, the video concludes with a simple call to action to Download the Stockgro app.
But what made this CTA (and the whole ad) memorable is the Tagline: “Apne Stock ko shock se bacho, Trading seekhna h toh StockGro pe aao”
And this tagline precisely sums up the ad message in a quirky way.
Key Learnings: What makes a good Product Ad?
Centre your video ad around a story rather than a specific selling point. Customers don’t tend to like hard sells.
Nail the first 8-10 seconds of your ad by answering WIIFM i.e “What’s in it for me?” for the Viewer. If you fail to grab your audience's attention with the right tone, they going to “skip” your ad.
Humans like to laugh. The use of humour with interesting, real-life visuals helped to make the content memorable and entertaining.
Identify the 2 to 3 core pain points of users and include them in your ad before revealing the solution.
Avoid using jargon or excessive info. that doesn't contribute directly to the overall message of your ads.
Your advertisement is nothing without a strong call to action(CTA). A CTA should evoke an emotional response using strong action words.
Like this one