When comedian Abish Mathew was hired to tell us how secure ICICI Bank's iMobile app is...

The online campaign comprises of three videos. A quick look at two.

ICICI Bank has collaborated with stand-up comedian Abish Mathew for a 12-day-long campaign that aims to bring out the ease and effectiveness of ICICI Bank's iMobile app. The app, with over 150 features, has been designed to make banking simpler.

Created by The Glitch (strategy and media planning) and OML (video production), the campaign consists of three videos, one of which is yet to be released. Each of the other two, #SafeChahiye and #SimpleChahiye, showcase typical Indian quirks when it comes to using mobile banking solutions. The videos position iMobile app as the near perfect fit in terms of what an Indian needs.

The campaign is being executed on digital channels including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.

On the challenges of executing this campaign, an official response from the agency states, "Media planning and defining the role of each digital platform to land the message was a key element which the campaign rides on. The biggest task at hand was to keep optimising the media plan each week, based on the campaign's performance on different platforms."

While this is not the first time an online celeb is being used for a campaign, earlier examples mostly include influencers promoting niche, online or youth brands such as Netflix (Tanmay Bhatt and Anurag Kashyap), FabAlley (Radhika Vaz), or Ola and Make Love Not Scars (Tanmay Bhatt again).

Of late, the distinction has blurred and there have been instances of celebs such as Mallika Dua endorsing mainstream brands including Hyundai and DNA. Nestle did a similar campaign for the launch of its Maggi Hotheads range.

Although it's true that advertising in the BFSI space is mostly staid, and at best one gets to see some tear-jerkers from insurance brands, ICICI has tried to break the monotony in the past with campaigns such as Bande Acche hain for ICICI Prudential, Don't take load, do the download for ICICI Pockets app, and ICICI Lombard's #DoTheDifficult.

Here's what experts have to say about the brand's latest attempt at wooing the digital natives...

Campaign review

According to Carlton D'Silva, CEO and CCO, Hungama Digital Services, online influencers are used for a single purpose... to influence. Brands hope to get a kick start and good traction for their campaigns by riding on influencer following. However, he says that it is important to spend time on the content.

"If the content is not good, no matter how famous the influencer is, it will fall flat. In this case, there is an attempt to make the use of the app more interesting, but it fails. The humour is just not up to the mark (even when put across by Abish)," he rues.

Anshul Sushil, co-founder and CEO, BoringBrands, says, "When brands work with offbeat influencers, it creates higher purchase intent with their customers. But ultimately, everything hinges on the relationship between influencers and consumers. What a brand should do is experiment with them, but target its audience sharply instead of simply focusing on an influencer's style. For a great collaboration, it is important to align brand objectives, influencer visions and audience expectations."

Sushil quite likes the light-hearted approach the ads take towards banking. While this may not be a 'first-of-its-kind' campaign from a bank, he maintains that with the youth becoming financially independent and the wave of digitisation sweeping banks, it is important to talk to consumers in the language they understand.

"Online celebs who post, snap, tweet to their thousands or millions of followers will get entry into households, after which consumers will run to buy the products they recommend. Money follows eyeballs, and the eyeballs are online right now," he notes.