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Pakistan

It was a 'playful thing' to engage with our audience: Careem on 'Rishta Aunty' campaign

Dunya News

Careem's latest feature received a mixed reaction from users for their unique marketing campaign.

By Aroma Shahid

Careem’s latest promotional campaign created much hype on Wednesday as it introduced a limited feature allowing users to share a ride with a ‘Rishta Aunty’ and help her use her skills to find you a match the  halaal  way.

As the two-day campaign comes to an end today, Dunya News talked to the people behind the trendy campaign that stirred a huge chain reaction on social media. The Head of Public Affairs at Careem, Sibtain Naqvi answered the queries and helped to get a clearer understanding of the whole idea behind the promotional campaign.

“Finding a partner through a matchmaker is a highly practiced method in our part of the world,” said Naqvi. “It was a playful thing we came up with to engage with our audience.”

“We take pride in being a local company and find ways to celebrate our culture,” he added.

Careem’s promotional campaigns are popular for being quirky and for incorporating latest social media trends whether they are about politics or local traditions. “This campaign had a similar purpose like other ones, to promote our cultural practices, like last year Careem introduced ‘Hide Collection’ service during Eid-ul-Azah where users could donate animal hides to charity,” said Naqvi.

Recently, marketing campaigns are integrating viral trends on social networking sites as a promotional technique. One odd campaign gets Twitter buzzing and then other marketeers join in on the viral fever. It has become almost impossible to remain oblivious to these trends since people feel compelled to re-post any unorthodox marketing campaign they come across on social media.

Naqvi said that it’s an undeniable fact that most families in our country get connected through ‘Rishta Aunty’ so applying this practice as test-run campaign was to find out people’s reactions.

Waking up to a notification from Careem saying ‘Your rishta has arrived’ left a lot of users in shock. However, while some accepted the fun element behind the idea, on the other hand, some criticised it for being intrusive.

Dunya News also conducted a brief poll to gauge the public’s reaction on the campaign.

Out of 393 voters, 61% thought that this campaign was nothing but a ‘cheap publicity stunt’; however, 22% people agreed that it was ‘all in good humour’.

“Mixed reactions from the audience were expected prior to launching the campaign and it’s good to see that most people found it funny,” said Naqvi. “There was no intention of making this a permanent feature. We learn from the public’s reactions and that’s why this campaign was launched.”

Careem, while keeping up with the current events in Pakistan introduced a promo code ‘Calibri’ following the developments in the Panama Papers case, which received a good response from users.

The ride-hailing app also became the first to encourage female drivers to join Careem as captains. “We introduced the female captain feature temporarily in the beginning to find out how people would respond,” said Naqvi. “After receiving a positive feedback, we have decided to employ more than 1000 female captains by December and make it a permanent feature by March 2018,” he said.

Although, ‘Rishta Aunty’ campaign was successful considering an interactive response on such a high level from social media users, there were still some concerns regarding safety. Those not in favour of this practice raised questions about how it can be ensured that this method will not lead to bullying as  Rishta Aunties  are known for being vocal in their criticism largely based on superficial traits of individuals, specifically women. 

“This was all in good fun. People are not being forced to opt for this feature. They can choose to take the car and experience the journey for themselves,” said Naqvi.

“These women are professional matchmakers and have been directed to not be too intrusive and only guide the user unless they are serious about the matter and ask for further assistance,” he added.

Whether the people understood the humour behind it or not, one thing is certain that social media campaigns have a huge impact as is evident from how the campaign was received by users on Facebook and Twitter, making the topic and Careem a top trend in Pakistan over the past two days.