#SSIPLWatch We will use IPL's reach to drive message around financial credibility: Trupthi Shetty, CRED

As a part of our #SSIPLWatch series, we get in conversation with Trupthi Shetty, CRED, understanding the brand's decision to officially associate with IPL for a 3 season deal.

After many speculations, delays, and challenges, IPL 2020 is here. Earlier this month, CRED, a community of creditworthy individuals, merchants, and institutions was onboarded as the Official Partner for IPL by Indian Premier League Governing Council (IPL GC).

With a 3 season partnership, CRED plans to educate consumers on their brand promise & services. Trupthi Shetty, Lead- Growth & Engagement, CRED informs Social Samosa that the brand will be focusing on digital to build consumer engagement.

Edited Excerpts:

What was the insight behind your association with IPL 2020?

With millions of Indians slated to watch the IPL this season, our partnership goes beyond the need to create awareness for the brand.

Part of our mission at CRED is to educate the masses about managing their finances, more specifically, managing credit better.

The association with the IPL will bring us closer to this goal, helping create widespread awareness about the importance of paying your credit card bills on time.

Our target audience is primarily the first-generation wealthy, those who might be the first in their families to use products such as credit cards. Through the unique constructs and rewarding experiences we create for members, we will be able to build excitement and awareness about a product that helps people use their credit cards better. We are also looking forward to leveraging the sporting event’s reach to educate people about the plethora of products, services, and experiences they can avail as rewards on CRED for doing something as simple as paying their bills on time.

What does the overall marketing plan for the season look like? What kind of a role will social media play?

This year, unlike others before, the pandemic has led to more of a focus on digital with events and activations being moved to virtual. This is exciting for us since CRED has focused on creating rewarding digital experiences for the community for quite a few months. There are two focus areas that all our marketing plans would be centered around. The first is to use IPL’s reach to drive messages surrounding financial and credit literacy- an integral part of our mission at CRED. The second is to leverage our position as a brand discovery platform amongst the mass affluent to partner with brands and create rewarding experiences centered around matches that are high on engagement. Some of the rewarding experiences we are creating for members during the IPL include;  

• Members who pay their credit card bills on CRED during CRED Power Play - the Most Rewarding Overs will win assured cash-back and a chance to participate in a raffle that will run during both the Power Plays of the match. The winner would get 100% cash back on their credit card bill payment along with a special video mention, featuring in the “Dream 11 IPL Fan Box” during the live broadcast of the match. The winner would be named “CRED Payer of the match” 
• We have partnered with GiveIndia to have CRED members raise funds for an NGO- Sports Coaching Foundation. Through CRED Causes, members will be able to use their CRED coins to sponsor cricket training of the underprivileged youth across the country. 
• We have also partnered with leading premium brands such as OnePlus, Myntra, Ajio, Puma, Lalit Hotels, CROSS, Tata Cliq, JioSaavn, Audible, CureFit, Dineout, Syska, Samsung, Motorola, RBL (Reliance Brands), Hugo Boss, JioSaavn and WROGN to create and offer rewarding products, services and experiences to members. 

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Please take us through your media mix. How much percent of it is reserved for digital?

There are multiple activities that the team is planning across broadcast and digital mediums at this stage but these are too premature to be discussed. At CRED, we’ve worked on creating digital constructs that employ gamification among other elements. 

How will you be leveraging IPL to bounce back from the pandemic induced business lull & changing consumer habits created by the lockdown?

At CRED, we specialise in creating unique and rewarding digital experiences for our members. Digital has created a whole new medium for discovery, engagement and consumption.

During the IPL season, we will continue our focus on digital, creating engagements that audiences can access while watching the matches on their phone.

The engagements that we are looking to create are not the standardised digital experiences that people are accustomed to. These will be unique and rewarding experiences centered around the game, creating memorable experiences for members for each match that they watch.

What are the consumer trends that you foresee keeping in mind IPL 13 and festive season around? 

The ongoing pandemic and the lockdown have accelerated the shift to the digital medium even as physical goods consumption has started to return to normal levels.  Digital services on CRED spiked in May and have held their levels since, even as consumption of physical goods and experiences have returned to Feb-March levels as of August. Members have been spending over 15 billion coins on CRED even throughout the lockdown, and it’s only going up.  We expect this trend to continue and foresee a balance with consumers turning back to purchase of physical goods and experiences as time goes by whilst continuing to explore the digital medium as well.