In 2021-22, India saw 3,59,791 digital payments scams totalling Rs 816.40 crore (1).

These scammers use not hacking but social engineering to get access to people’s money. Awareness is the only way avoid becoming a victim.

As a brand that already talks about user-safety, WhatsApp Payments saw an opportunity to create this awareness and promote safe digital payments in its largest market.

The brief: A PSA-style campaign to spread awareness of how to avoid digital scams.

Objectives:

Primary: Generate awareness about digital scams in a way that is entertaining, not fearmongering.

Secondary: Showcase WhatsApp’s existing features as potential tools against scams.

Media insight:

To be light-hearted yet memorable, we decided to use a song.

To bring alive the risk of digital scams, we wanted to create a hands-on experience mimicking a scam but then guiding people in the right direction.

We rewrote the lyrics of the well-known song “Ae Bhai, Zara Dekh Ke Chalo” (“Hey brother, stay safe while you walk”) to “Ae Bhai, Zara Scam Se Bacho” (“Hey brother, stay safe from scams”). The new lyrics spoke of scams and how not to fall prey to them. The song was set to a music video showing people stopping others near them from falling for scams.

As an engaging and hands-on activation, we also created and put up fake lottery posters mimicking the suspicious posters already in train stations and compartments. Like the scams, we had a QR code, but instead of leading to a payment gateway our code led back to our music video.

By using a fun song and playful activation, we kept the campaign light-hearted and informative without fearmongering about digital transactions.

While the film was for all digital payments users, the focus was on the older generation, who is less tech-savvy and more susceptible to falling for digital scams. The track chosen thus had the appeal of nostalgia and familiarity to this group.

We planned to adapt the song, set it to a music video and upload it on digital platforms. We would then follow the film with our fake-scam posters at public locations.

We chose to approach the matter with a concerned but friendly and light-hearted tone—the tone of someone who cares about you and is looking out for you but does not induce the same fear and anxiety of a more authoritative tone.

The poster was a guerrilla marketing tactic, mimicking the very thing that it later warns you against and thus teaching the lesson of avoiding scams in a very hands-on, realistic and memorable way.

The film was first released on WhatsApp’s YouTube channel on 26 July 2022

It was posted on WhatsApp’s social media, and the ads were live on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook for 3 weeks.

Shortly after the release of the film, we plastered the posters in various public locations in Mumbai such as train and bus stations and small local grocery and tea stalls.

The campaign drove brand reach by 43.5M with a total of 357M impressions, of which approximately 257M– 71%-- were earned impressions.

Brand engagement increased by 22.3%.

The film was shared by news and media outlets, on various WhatsApp groups and chats, and even by the Twitter handles of local police stations (Assam Police, Ranchi Police and more). WhatsApp as a brand was able to leverage the immense popularity of WhatsApp as a platform.

Awareness of WhatsApp Payments also increased from Q2 to Q4. The campaign extended WhatsApp’s existing perception of user safety to the new Payments feature.

7 out of 10 Indians believed WhatsApp cared about its users, and it received the highest loyalty rating among apps in India.