'Automatic' choice

Ola Auto's maiden TV commercials try to define the category as the cab aggregator looks to tap the market beyond metro cities

Leading online cab aggregator Ola has come up with its first set of television commercials (TVCs) for its Ola Auto business, as it sets sights on foraying into a market beyond metro cities. The campaign features two ad films in English and a few regional languages, each less than half a minute and delivering the tagline, “Auto bole toh Ola Auto”, reminiscent of the iconic category-defining “Thanda matlab Coca-Cola”. While audiences may be familiar with Ola’s association with cabs, the maiden TVCs on its autorickshaw segment comes three years after the launch of the feature.

In one of the ads show two girls are just finishing shopping inside a supermarket, and in the other two girls are bored at class. Both sets of prospective Ola customers barely think aloud wishing they could leave in an autorickshaw when the vehicle emerges like magic next to them with the driver ready to ferry them.

Mudit Shekhawat, senior director, marketing, Ola, points out the objective of the campaign is to reach out to a large commuter base and make Ola Auto the top-of-the-mind recall for every regular autorickshaw user. “The Ola Auto proposition is extremely compelling. With rides starting at just Rs 29 for the first 4 km, free Wi-Fi, wide availability, doorstep pickup as well as cashless payments, there is no reason why anyone with a smartphone should be taking regular autos.”

Ola is present in 110 cities, and in the autorickshaw space, it is the largest aggregator with a coverage of 73 cities. Ola records approximately 10 million auto rides that happen in the country every day, says Shekhawat, providing a big opportunity to add more vehicles to the platform while transferring benefits to customers (through value adds to their rides) and to drivers (through increased earnings).

Happy mcgarrybowen, the creative agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, conceptualised the campaign.

Kartik Iyer, chief executive officer, Happy mcgarrybowen, says given the familiarity of autos to Indians, what Ola offers isn’t a different commuting option from what exists but a change is at an experiential level.

“There are some very compelling reasons like doorstep pickup and Rs 29 for 4 km and above that the free WiFi which are possible only when you book an Ola Auto. The task on hand was to build on this and make the association between autos and Ola stronger,” he adds. Iyer says the simple, quirky communication in the campaign isn’t different from earlier ones from Ola. “The only difference is that this campaign has gone more vernacular than others focussing on markets where autorickshaws are more popular.”

Ola is a leading aggregator in the online segment of the taxi market in India, the overall market being estimated at about $15 billion, as against nearly $2 billion online.

Shekhawat says that the auto business is one of Ola's fastest growing categories. “Our current focus is on the smartphone-owning offline auto customers. Hence, we are working on several features that will help us in removing all the barriers for accessing Ola’s services. Launching features such as enabling commuters to access Ola's services, even if they don't own a smartphone or have Internet connectivity, is something that’s in the pipeline. Other than this, we will be scaling up autos further, taking it to many demand-heavy tier-II and tier-III cities,” he adds.