Campaign Spot

Ola Cabs presents Ola Restrooms, taking pranks seriously

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Paawan Sunam
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Ola Cabs


With the mission of "Building mobility for a Billion Indians", Ola Cabs is also building campaigns with mobility at its core for a billion Indians. Flushing with creativity, Ola Cabs continues to make out-of-the-box propositions believable.

The repute of April Fool's Day is such that even if a brand launched a campaign truthfully, there are heavy chances that it may be perceived as a prank. Given the instances where people go to mind-boggling lengths to celebrate this day, and many brands doing the same.

With Ola Cabs' long-built reputation with 'serious' April Fool's Day campaigns and a common perception among people to stay cautious, it results in little or no element of surprise.

Although, the detailed insights from the company's significant members like the company's CEO or the Product Designer explaining the need-gap that they spotted and how they conceptualized it while keeping it customer-centric, it makes the campaign (kind of)believable, but not really.

Maintaining the Ola April Fool Day prank campaign legacy, Ola released a campaign video of an innovative solution to the commonly faced issue of sanitation, because what do you do when you really have to go - Ola Restrooms.

Ola Restrooms

Also Read:This is not an April Fool’s Day joke, brands are celebrating April Fool’s Day

Ola took the campaign a step ahead to make it a crowdfunding campaign and associated with "Gramalya" to generate funds to facilitate better sanitation for thousands.

https://www.facebook.com/Olacabs/videos/2260569807491375/
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Explaining the insight behind the recent ad campaign, Prashanth Challapalli, COO, Leo Burnett Orchard said, "The simple rule for any April Fool’s campaign is that the idea has to be believable enough but just about crazy enough. We knew whatever we did, most people would guess that it’s an April Fool campaign. We also knew it would generate massive views. What if we could use April Fool’s as to really make a difference to sanitation in India. That’s where “Gramalya” came in."

He further added, "To us, the big twist was not Ola Restrooms, it was the donation drive. At last count we have generated 10Mn plus views across platforms with reach and engagement in the millions. We have had media sites doing stories. And we can’t even count what happened on Whatsapp. We are closely tracking the amount of money generated via donations. This campaign is not over. We will track the donations and keep updating our consumers and audiences on social media. Sometimes, a prank can be for the good. I think we just proved that."

While Ola Restrooms gained a lot of engagement and stirred a buzz on social media, few fell for it.

https://twitter.com/JiyaaKhanna/status/1112300421534703616

And, few were enraged.

Well, it interesting to see each year, Ola coming up with April Fool's Day campaign that if implemented in real, the world would be a happy and funny place.

Ola Air

Ola Rooms

Ola Wheels

Ola News Network

Ola Cabs' revenue grew by almost 61% during FY2018, as reported by Economic Times. Many of the millions using their service do not seem to be bothered by the brand's gimmicks. What do you think of Ola Cabs' April Fool's Day Campaigns? Will they lure you to use their service or deter you from using their service?

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