"Our biggest competition is cash": PayPal's Naarayan T V

A not-so new player in the fintech market is vying for a slice of the consumers’ attention pie. PayPal has launched an new influencer-led marketing campaign for Diwali to draw attention to its cash back feature and ease of usage in making payments while travelling. The American company was founded in December 1998, in Palo Alto, California and launched domestic operations in November 2017.

Their most recent Diwali campaign sees the brand collaborate with influencers across categories, such as chef Ranveer Brar, travel blogger Malhaar Rathod and Femina Miss Indian finalist Aditi Shetty. Naarayan T V, head, merchant marketing and digital at PayPal shared some marketing insights over a telephonic conversation relating to the campaign and the fintech space in India.

Naarayan explains that PayPal is a risk management company in the space of digital payments – the definition the company’s employees use internally. PayPal acts as an interface when a customer or a buyer wants to participate in a transaction. If a customer wants to make a purchase from an e-commerce platform, PayPal is a way to complete the transaction. If a merchant (online or offline) wants to make a sale to a customer, then PayPal enables them to receive money from his/her potential customer.

“We’ve been in the cross-border side of business for about a good 10 years now and largely, our Indian domestic launch is targetted at consumers and merchants. What works for us is that there’s a set of audience that already knows about PayPal because they’ve been exposed to our brand when they travel to foreign countries. More than anything, our campaign objective is brand visibility,” Naarayan says.

“In India, the fintech market is as it is, pretty heavily penetrated and we have lots of competition. But the real competition is not actually a particular brand — it's cash. So, the cash market accounts for roughly 90 per cent of the volume of transactions. In that sense, with more competition coming into India, we look at it as a good story because more competition in the market means more innovation in terms of the products and its capabilities,” says Naarayan.

According to him, when competitors enter the market and people bring global capabilities, it stands to benefit consumers in India as they have access to more features and benefits. “If you're looking at cash back specifically you have to treat it with a larger lens. Honestly, I wouldn't say that we have stayed away from cash back. That's the logic that we bring into the market, which a discerning audience would definitely appreciate,” he mentions.

He mentions the influencers used are based on the categories that the target audience shows affinity towards and interacts with. Though the campaign is centered on Diwali, during its launch, the campaign goes beyond the festive season. “Largely, if you look at the e-commerce category, all spends tend to be maximum in this particular quarter. We figured out that the first round can adopt that strategy. We're not going to stay away from the fact that we offer a safe proposition, but actually we’re capitalising on the mood of the time. With delivery, you can't take away the fact that people are going to be spending more,” Naarayan explains, telling us that the construct of this campaign is that its built in such a way that it has something for existing customers as well as new prospects that come into the system.

He further elucidates that the main intention is, the brand wants people to come and experience PayPal for the first time. The Diwali campaign allows users to participate in a contest, in multiple categories, giving users the chance to win vouchers that are valid throughout the year. “The core concept is, 'Why celebrate for a limited period of time?’ We want the consumers to celebrate throughout the year,” he says.

When asked about the TG and the brand’s presence in tier II and III cities, he replies, “We have a definition of an audience that we like to go after. It’s a discerning audience that actually understands the value of the brand. To say that we would want to go completely mass market wouldn't be true, but audiences are spread across India. If you look at our merchants, the cross border side of the business is still more than tier II and III cities, because there are people who have aspirations to grow their business, which is why PayPal, as a brand, is globally present in 200 markets.”

He defines the audience under two broad categories — The first is digital natives who are young, may not have high disposable income and they may be between 18 -30 years old. The second category is an audience who lives in a double-income, no-children kind of household.

He discussed the campaign approach and informed us that since the brand was taking a digital first approach, all the creatives were made keeping that in mind. The agencies that the brand works with include iProspect — their umbrella media agency and Tonic Worldwide, their creative agency.

The digital medium is one that comes with its own set of risks. Brand safety is something that PayPal — and Naarayan — take very seriously. “We choose channels very carefully. It’s largely in line with our strategy for this campaign. We’ve gone with Facebook bumper ads, 30 second ads and we ensure to go after the right kind of programmatic channels to find the audiences we want to talk to because it’s important that the message you’re giving out has to be viewed by the right audience.”

When asked about marketing insights from his career that led him to this point, he pegs integrity to the job as the first factor. “I think it's about putting your head down and actually focussing on the basics. You have to see that I always pick digital more than anything is because that's been my area of interest. Marketing is also moving in the digital direction — 25 per cent of search queries are coming from voice search,” he says.

When asked to review the campaign efforts, Narayan Devanathan, group executive and strategy officer at the Dentsu Aegis Network, hazards a guess that the company is taking the 'discount season' expectation of Diwali and extending it all year-round, and wants to establish that PayPal’s partnerships do that. “Theoretically, the campaign might work beyond Diwali, given that’s the central premise — that Diwali (and its “discount” spirit) is now 365 days a year. Can the ads in the current campaign hold good? Debatable…” he wonders.

“I may be old-fashioned but I imagine the point of using influencers is to let them speak in their own authentic voices — you know, the ones that attract their followers in the first place. If I was a follower of any of these influencers in the first place, I’d probably be turned off by their blatant plugs of the brand here, because without that, these could just be regular ads featuring models/known faces,” Devanathan opines.

A lot of brands are working with influencers and Devanathan feels that a few campaigns stand out — especially if it’s a digital-native campaign. “The comments on PayPal’s YouTube page for these videos are disabled. I’d imagine the point of using influencers is to allow their followers to interact with them. But that avenue seems to be unavailable. On the influencers’ own Instagram pages, there’s no difference in their followers’ responses to these posts versus their regular posts. It’s the usual fan reaction to their looks and style rather to the brand message. Which makes me wonder exactly what the metrics of success for this campaign are…” he concludes.