Dineout extends the #FearNoBill campaign with an outdoor activity this Halloween, with people roaming around as ghost bills around Delhi and Gurgaon eateries.
Category Introduction
The NRAI IFSR 2019 estimates Indian food services industry’s market size at INR 4.23 lakh crore in 2018-19 and expected to grow at a CAGR of 9% to reach INR 6 lakh crore in the next five years. The industry employs 7.3 million people as of today and expected to increase to 9.2 million in 2022-23. In the overall food services business, ‘affordable casual dining’ continues to dominate the market and is the fastest-growing vertical within the industry.
Brand Introduction
Dineout is an Indian platform for dining out and restaurant tech solutions. It lets users book a table, explore places, and avail offers. One of the key highlights of the platform is their Dineout Pay feature, which grants an instant 20% cashback on any bill. To highlight this feature, Dineout launched its #FearNoBill campaign in August, which kicked off with a film starring the brilliant Jim Sarbh.
Marketing objective from Social Media
Halloween is still an unexplored cultural phenomenon here in India. In fact, the only real representations we have of it are all via costume parties, oft hosted by slick bars and restaurants.
Summary
Halloween’s fast becoming a cultural phenomenon worldwide and Dineout decided to own the occasion. On 31st night, several ‘bill ghosts’ were deployed in New Delhi’s Connaught Place and Gurugram’s Sector 29. These ghosts were dressed resembling in their classic attire of a draped bedsheet, but in a relevant twist, it was a large restaurant bill acting as the costume instead.
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All night long, these ghosts surprise-scared patrons; showed up with the bill; sat alone at the bar all night, and even simply lingered outside restaurants. When folks wanted to interact with Bill, he simply handed them a Dineout flyer and walked away. All these reactions — fright, curiosity, incredulity, amusement — were captured in a film. Half-prank, half-goof, full-weird, our activation won fans online and offline.
Problem Statement/Objective
The insight behind the campaign was that people avoid considering the option to dine out as an economic proposition. This was found to be especially true within the millennial cohort, who have limited disposable income.
Through this campaign, Dineout wanted to encourage consumers to not be afraid of hefty bills while dining out and create awareness around the brand’s connect with the customers who are looking for offers on their restaurant bills.
Brief
While Dineout wanted to advertise ‘outdoor’, there was no brief in particular; they just wanted simple ideas that could be ‘cool’ — stuff that is less advertising and more fun.
Creative Idea
The activity had a ludicrous premise for you don’t expect a bill-inspired ghost to boo you in Connaught Place.
Challenges
All challenges here were logistical. Scaring someone — or even getting them to laugh or react — is not easy on-ground, especially when you’re shooting. Spooky isn’t very simple.
Execution
To capitalise on the Halloween occasion, Dineout dressed various actors as ‘ghosts’, whose most cliche costume includes a draped bedsheet. To echo the campaign thought, #FearNoBill was interpreted in a literal manner where large restaurant bills were printed on the bedsheets. It was, very simply, restaurant bills scaring folks in an area with the most restaurants in both cities.
Results
Reach – 3 Million
Impressions – 4.5 Million
Video Plays – 3.5 Million
Post engagement – 0.5 Million
(Campaign data for the first 5 days)
Ankit Mehrotra, Co-Founder and CEO, Dineout said, “At Dineout, we aspire to be the secret recipe behind the most eventful dining out experiences across India. Unfortunately, the innate fear of an exorbitant bill burning a hole in our pockets is often the only thing that stops us from making the most of these experiences. The #FearNoBill campaign draws on this collective fear to assure every Indian that Dineout will be the custodian of incredible savings every time they go out — there’s no trick to this treat!”
