Campaign: Finger ghumao, Furniture mangao
Brand: MebelKart.com
Company: MebelKart.com
Agency: Rajkumar Hirani Films
Ratings: 3/5
The Ad
The ad has Kangana Ranaut play a typical young girl returning home after partying, quickly changing into ‘sanskaari’ clothes in the elevator of her building before seeing her father at the doorstep. To calm his queries on her whereabouts, Ranaut cooks up a story of how tired she is having spent the day hunting for his favourite kind of rocking chair, across different stores. She claims to have finally found it, to which her now mellowed down father finally allows her inside the house. We then see Ranaut coolly opening the MebelKart app on her phone and ordering the rocking chair, sneakily hiding the truth from her father. A voiceover concludes: “Finger ghumao, Furniture mangao.”
Our Take
A step in the right direction is that the online furniture marketplace MebelKart.com has finally decided to take the plunge into mainstream advertising. The brand is clear in what it wants to communicate and it is not making the mistake of cramming in too much information. MebelKart launched in 2012; the same year saw Urban Ladder and FabFurnish being launched. Pepperfry had entered the market in 2011. Comparatively, these players have had a head start in brand building. The focus of the ad film in question lies in informing the audience of the ease of buying through the app. The brand has leveraged Ranaut’s presence well. The ad is entertaining, with the typical brand of humour associated with Ranaut. She is also the brand ambassador for AskMe.com which invested $20 million in MebelKart last year.
The furniture space being unorganised, is in want of major efforts in a relatively short span of time if a brand wants to grow in this space. MebelKart is already a few years behind with its communication on television.Until now, the brand put out content on its digital platforms for consumption. The strategy of sticking to only communicating ease of purchase and delivery, while valid, seems basic. Rahul Agrawal, co-founder and CEO, MebelKart, says, “With higher demand for products online, the aim is to showcase the ease with which furniture can be bought online. We want to show people that their dream home is a click away with MebelKart.” MebelKart’s peers, in their days of initial mainstream communication, were far more aggressive in their promises and brand propositions. MebelKart’s efforts in that sense seem rather restrained, considering it has only just started speaking out.
Here’s hoping for another round of communication with more than ease being offered via the brand ambassador. Considering the type of characters that Ranaut plays has popular appeal, it is up to the brand to make its communication stand out.
