What is the Product Strategy of CRED?
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Many entrepreneurs have a perpetual urge to search for a new business idea. They are continuously moving from one venture to another. We call them serial entrepreneurs. They have a permanent filter on their cornea that spots and scans problems in the environment, looks for solutions to these problems, and simultaneously screens them for their business potential. This problem-solving outlook coupled with innovation thinking is what defines serial entrepreneurs.
But are entrepreneurs always approaching a potential business idea with a freshly cleaned state? Or do they have some “trademark ideas” which they carry from one big idea to another.
Take the example of serial entrepreneur Kunal Shah. Kunal, a non-tech background tech entrepreneur ventured into his first entrepreneurial venture “paisaback” which subsequently became “freecharge”. His next and current venture is “CRED” which is also in the fintech domain.
Does this mean that Kunal is looking to solve problems only in the fintech domain? An entrepreneur who is supposed to be looking at solving any and every problem has narrowed down to solving only fintech problems?
Secondly, look at the similarity of the appeal to get customers to use the product. Both freecharge and CRED give away freebies to the customers which are too good to be true. One might argue that what is wrong in using an idea which has been successful in the past? It’s a tried and tested strategy to get customers on board. Amazon, Jio, Ola are brands which have seen success with this strategy.
Thirdly, the idea of tie-up with retail brands for coupons. The idea was new in 2012 with freecharge but the same is continued in 2020 with CRED.
But; look at the fourth similarity; the advertisements of freecharge and CRED.
The ads are so similar that it looks like Kunal has saved the creative brief given to the ad agency that created the freecharge ads in 2012 and mailed it to DDB Mudra in 2020. Moreover, it seems like he has personally monitored the ad making at every step both in 2012 and 2020.
For one the 2012 ads of Freecharge and the 2020/21 ads of CRED are 30 sec TVC’s. The mediums of reaching out to the customers have changed drastically in these 8 years but not in this case. A very big similarity to begin with.
Secondly, the 2012 freecharge ads had Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Virat Kohli, & M S Dhoni. All youth icons from Bollywood and cricket since the target audiences were the youth. In 2020/21 CRED ads have Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Rahul Dravid, Venkatesh Prasad, Bappi Lahiri, & Javagal Srinath. All are icons from Bollywood and cricket but this time round they are middle-aged since target audiences are also in this age group.
Thirdly look at the frequency with which the ads have been placed. In both cases of freecharge and CRED the Share of Voice as compared to any other competitor is very high. A very high level of noise and visibility in both campaigns creates constant recall among the targeted audiences.
When one sees so many similarities in two entrepreneurial ventures which are separated by a decade between them one wonders whether CRED will go the way Freecharge did.
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