Magicbricks woos consumers spoilt by quick commerce revolution

The 15-year-old property site wants to become a superapp, with a bouquet of 15+ real estate related services including pest control and home cleaning.

In its latest TVC, Times Internet-owned Magicbricks says that it not only provides 15 lakh plus property listings but also 15 plus services that can help make a house a home. Featuring its brand ambassador Ayushmann Khurrana, the ad released last month communicates the property site’s transformed avatar as a full stack real estate service provider.

The campaign ‘Property Sahi. Aur Ab Services Sabhi’ has been conceptualised by Ankur Suman and Pragya Bhatnagar from RK Swamy BBDO, Delhi as a set of three TVCs. With this campaign, Magicbricks has planned a high decibel multi-media national communications outreach of six to eight weeks across media. The brand launched the first of its three TVCs last month, which takes us through the 15-year journey of Magicbricks and finally through the list of new services on the platform.

With this campaign, the brand aims to evolve with the changing needs of Indian consumers by providing services like expert advice, home loan, legal assistance, pest control, home cleaning, sanitisation, consultation on Vaastu, décor amongst others.

Devarshy Ganguly, head of marketing, Magicbricks, says consumer insight is at the heart of this transformation. The consumer behaviour has been changing rapidly on the digital side in the last two years. “People are now more comfortable transacting online. Convenience as a bubble is just growing larger with the availability of 10-minute deliveries. We are seeing behavioural change accelerated and a demand for integrated services in one place. We realised that the real need is for integration and digitalisation of these services. So we are trying to enable seamlessness and a high degree of convenience. Our endeavour is to be that one-stop shop and solution,” he says.

The pandemic has accelerated the demand for this integration. “Imagine sitting at home and having the time to look around, but not being able to go out and get these services. So having it all in one place, is probably the single biggest upshot of what's happened in the last two years. While it would be lovely to go back completely to what we were before the pandemic, some of the behavioural patterns have altered, which is driving the convenience factor that everybody is looking for,” he says.

Ankur Suman, partner and ECD- RK Swamy BBDO, said, “We wanted to present the big transformation in Magicbricks not as a new business objective but as a genuine response to fulfill the changing needs in the new world. The challenge was that the communication shouldn't lose sight of the core, while talking about the new offerings. We are happy we were able to do it in a manner that's very relevant and relatable to all of us as consumers.”

Magicbricks print ad

">

The campaign will also be seen in print and digital media. “This campaign is a milestone campaign for us and so is meant to reach out to a large audience. It's 360 degrees in nature. Digital is at the heart of what we do and we are doing it in a big way. Similarly television as well. Being a part of the BCCL family, print is obviously core to us,” he says.

Getting these services from multiple platforms can be quite a tedious task. So Magicbricks has now created a marketplace that helps the consumers connect with the right service provider and everything can be booked from one app.

“We've led the search and discovery space for the last 15 years. Through these years we have learnt that as we go along the consumer journey, there are different needs in this category- researching the location, enablement in the form of home loans, movers and packers or legal documentation assistance. We've spent time understanding what the consumer wants and now we are partnering with them end-to-end and at any point,” he says.

Ganguly says that providing all the services on one platform will also help expand its portfolio. “How many times would one buy a house in a year? But one could have so many other needs for which he would come to us across the year. By having everything in one place we will probably have many more cohorts coming to us and drive stickiness,” he says.

These 15 services are just the beginning for the property site. It intends to expand its portfolio even further. “We take it upon ourselves to read the needs of tomorrow. If you believe that what you are today is going to work tomorrow, you won’t stay relevant. To remain relevant you've to keep mapping what people want,” he adds.

Khurrana has been its brand ambassador since 2019. Ganguly says that his attributes bring trust and credibility to the brand. “The choice of a brand ambassador is largely led by a set of shared values that you have with the brand. Khurrana's a self-made, driven person and a great actor. We associate with him a performance excellence, yet he’s approachable. These values are very close to what we have at Magicbricks,” he explains.

The brand brought out a similar campaign last year as well to promote these services.

The ad makes an interesting observation in terms of the transformation of the home during the pandemic. It shows how the home also accommodated a school classroom and an office within its four walls. How have these changes altered the real estate sector?

“People in urban living are jostling for elbow room. The extra room will only come at a much higher cost in the same area. So we've seen people, both in large urban centres and slightly small urban centres, moving to the fringes for larger homes,” he says.