OYO Hotels & Homes ropes in Sonu Sood as the face of its ‘Sanitised Before Your Eyes’ campaign

Sanitised Before Your Eyes aims to give guests the ease of mind while booking their stays.

India is moving again, and travel is opening up but differently. Keeping a close eye on the ever-evolving travel trends and customer sentiments, OYO Hotels & Homes launched Sanitised Stays in partnership with Unilever in May 2020 to enhance its sanitisation and hygiene efforts. Taking it a step further, to showcase the hospitality chain’s sanitisation efforts in real-time and build trust within travellers, today, OYO launches its integrated campaign - SBYE or “Sanitised Before Your Eyes”, with Bollywood actor and OYO asset owner, Sonu Sood as the face of its campaign. This consumer focussed campaign has gone live across TV and digital platforms with its first ad - ‘Pehle Spray, Fir Stay’ today.

As state borders are opening up to welcome tourists once again, Indians are excited about taking that long due vacation to a nearby hill station, or drive down to the closest beach, or even enjoy a relaxing staycation within city limits. Travel is certainly back, however, consumers are looking for trustworthy accommodation and practices to ease their concerns, and their worries while fulfilling their travel aspirations. Understanding this, OYO’s latest campaign, Sanitised Before Your Eyes aims to give its customers the ease of mind while booking their stays. This is an on-request initiative through which OYO’s guests can request the hotel’s on-ground staff to sanitise high touch spots or frequently touched surfaces right in front of their eyes. Essentially, the sanitisation process will be done using two modes - through an aerosol disinfectant and/or by using a Spray Handy Sanitiser Machine.

The concept of the new TV and social film featuring Sonu Sood revolves around OYO’s asset owners and staff staying a step ahead of the guests’ thought process and sanitising all high touch surfaces right before the guests. The film features Sonu Sood in a red OYO t-shirt, portraying the character of a lively OYO staff. The ad is quirky and filled with humorous moments, and at the same time distinctly communicates the brand’s SBYE experience. For instance, as the guest tries to switch on the room lights, Sonu Sood cuts the guest’s speech midway and swiftly sprays the master switchboard. Similarly, when the guest reaches out to switch on the TV, Sonu once again interjects his speech and sprays the TV remote control and it continues with other objects.

Sharing his thoughts on the launch of OYO’s latest sanitisation efforts, Rohit Kapoor, CEO, OYO India & South Asia said, “Over the past few weeks, we’re seeing travel coming back, across hill stations, beach destinations and other leisure hot spots in India. People are ready to step outdoors, take a break from their routines, and explore new and exciting local destinations, through road trips and staycations. While India gears up to travel, as a responsible hospitality chain, we are strengthening our efforts to ensure safe and sanitised experiences for our guests, so that they can enjoy their holiday, while we take care of everything else. We understand that the world can be chaotic at present, but to ease our guests’ worries and concerns, we have rolled out Sanitised Before Your Eyes, through which our hotel staff will sanitise all high-risk surfaces right before the guest on checking-in.”

He adds, “Sonu has been an OYO asset owner with us since 2019 and we’re extremely happy to have him as the face of our campaign. We believe that his ideologies and our brand fit perfectly well together. His generous contributions towards the welfare of the society and common man during the pandemic are noteworthy and the fact that he is one of our partners will help us instill trust and faith in the hearts and minds of our guests, everytime they choose to stay with us.”

Speaking about the campaign, Mayur Hola, Head of Global Brand, OYO Hotels & Homes said, “Trust and love are like chai and biscuit (biscoot sounds better). The Sanitised Before Your Eyes initiative is a brand trust exercise that walks the talk by disinfecting the room in front of a guest's eyes. Our consumers asked this of us in the recent Project Hello we conducted, where we all called and spoke 1:1 to folks to understand their needs today. And we're happy to make it happen. As India hits the road, we're ensuring Sanitised Stays for our guests, so that they can focus on having a blast, while we focus on taking care of them.”

He adds, “Sonu's not just a celeb for us, I mean he is. But he is already one of us, an asset owner. His unparalleled contributions towards society are just so amazing. Big respect! The fact that he is one of our partners fills us with so much pride. Now he doesn’t just speak for us, he is OYO.”

Commenting on his association with OYO as the brand ambassador, acclaimed Bollywood actor Sonu Sood said, “As an asset partner with OYO, I have a first-hand experience of the proactive efforts of the OYO team over the last few months, not only to ensure safer experiences but also going above and beyond to become a partner in any given guests’ journey right from the planning process itself. I believe OYO enables people across the board to travel freely, with its affordable and quality stays spread across the farthest corners of India. When approached to be a part of this initiative, I was immediately on board. I believe that today, travellers including myself are constantly worried about hygiene and sanitisation while travelling in a virus-hit world. Witnessing the sanitisation process will reduce guests’ anxiety and worries to a great extent, allowing them to truly enjoy their stay. I am excited to be a part of this journey and hopefully, make a difference to the hundreds of lives of travellers that OYO welcomes everyday by opening its doors to safe and sanitised experiences.”

Both the concept of the campaign and script of the film were written by OYO’s in-house global brand team, with support from UBIK Films on production. The film will go live across offline (print, radio), digital channels (search ads, GDN, social media, YouTube ads, and influencers), partner network, co-OYO app, and CRM via push notifications, WhatsApp, app, website and emailers. OYO will also roll out IPL themed print ads across a leading English and Hindi print and online daily. Some interesting elements of the campaign include a unique conversationalist long copy print ad that will be seeded in leading English, Hindi and digital dailies, whereas the campaign’s social posts will creatively highlight the top 10 objects that will be sanitised through the SBYE SOP through distinct tags on the brand’s Instagram post (yes, this means that every object will have its very own social media handle too).

While there’s a surge in demand for leisure travel across the country, through a recent consumer survey, OYO observed that 80% of users are searching for sanitised stays, while 46% of users seek regulation related information while planning their next travel. Keeping this in mind, recently, OYO launched a one-stop solution for all travel-related assistance on the OYO app in India, including COVID-19 testing with leading ICMR approved pathology labs, visibility to state-wise guidelines, among others. This includes partnerships with Dr. Lal Path Labs, SRL Diagnostics, 1mg, and Indus Health Plus.