After our IPL campaign, registrations have gone up by 4X: Ashish Singhal, CoinSwitch Kuber

• This year saw many new-age platforms invest on IPL. Now with its suspension, brands are reworking on their marketing strategies for the ret of the year.
• CoinSwitch Kuber, which saw its registrations go up by 4X after its IPL ads, now wants to focus on creating unique campaigns that would get crypto mainstream attention like mutual funds or stocks do, engage with thought-leaders in the finance space and come up with more social media-led influencer marketing to reach out to its target audience, Ashish Singhal, CEO and Co-founder, CoinSwitch Kuber.

Every year, the Indian Premier League (IPL) becomes an advertising blitzkrieg that more and more brands want to invest in. Owing to the fact that the league has massive following across the country, it becomes one of the most effective properties to associate with, if you are trying to build awareness amongst consumers.

For the last two years, we have been seeing more and more digital-first brands come on board as advertisers and sponsors to make the most of this advertising extravaganza and this year was no different. This year, Star Sports, the official broadcaster of the VIVO IPL 2021 had roped in 18 sponsors and over 100 advertisers across multiple brand categories. We saw several new-age brands from categories ranging from e-commerce, gaming, edu-tech and e-wallets go all out with high-decibel campaigns. Even brands from categories like crypto investment platforms joined the brandwagon, to educate people about its offerings and build awareness among its target audience.

This year, CoinSwitch Kuber, a crypto investment platform, launched its IPL campaign right at the start of the league on Disney+ Hotstar. The campaign, ‘Trade Kar, Befikar’ which featured actor Kunaal Roy Kapur had been conceptualised by KV Sridhar aka Pops-led Nihilent. The brand was the first from the space to launch an extensive campaign. The ad was aimed at young, tech-savvy Indian consumers who are open to experiment when it comes to investments. Its attempt was to evangelize cryptocurrencies as an alternate asset class and build equity amongst Indian investors.

While the aim was to build awareness around the platform with the IPL campaign, the league's suspension brought the brand's plans to a halt. However, it already has a plan in place on how it wants to reach out to its audiences now. We recently caught up with Ashish Singhal, CEO and Co-founder, CoinSwitch Kuber to understand the brand's strategies to grow its presence in the segment. We also spoke to Singhal about its marketing plans, now that there is an uncertainty about whether IPL will be played at all this year. Here's what he had to say:

Excerpts:

Q) Cryptocurrency is still very new as an investment option in India and people aren't really sure how it all works. What has your experience been so far? How have you been educating consumers?
Cryptocurrencies in India are still at a very nascent stage but have been gaining a lot of traction lately. As a platform, we have been heavily investing in user education. A huge chunk from our recent funding rounds would go towards providing investors with the right information about cryptocurrencies, clarifying their most common doubts and explaining how they can safely invest in this new asset class. We have recently launched a slew of initiatives including video campaigns, Ads on Disney+ Hotstar, partnership with OTT platforms like TVF. Along with this, we are also revamping the content on our blog KuberVerse and YouTube channel to educate our users about crypto, investing and blockchain. We have increased the usage of infographics in our communication for easy understanding and have tried to incorporate vernacular content as well.

Q) Your ads had been running from the very beginning of IPL. What kind of response did you get? Was there a visible increase in your download numbers post IPL?
The response to our ads has been great. It was our effort to create greater visibility and awareness for crypto as an asset class. This,along with the simplicity that our platform offers has attracted a lot of users. CoinSwitchKuber’s registrations have gone up by 4x.

Q) What part of your annual marketing budget had you invested on IPL?
We had planned to allocate 20% of our annual marketing budget to this.

Q) With the suspension of IPL, what will your marketing strategy for the rest of the year look like?
With IPL cancelled halfway through, we are exploring other swim lanes to gauge user attention and educate them about crypto.

Our strategy would now revolve around the following:
1) We will fundamentally focus on understanding users about their needs and how their needs are evolving.
2) Focus on unique campaigns that would get crypto mainstream attention as mutual funds or stocks do.
3) Engage with thought-leaders in the finance space.
4)Social media-led influencer marketing will be important for us.

Q) It's been close to a year since the launch of CoinSwitch Kuber. Walk us through your experience so far. What kind of uptake have you seen so far?
Within just 10 months of our launch, CoinSwitch Kuber has become India’s largest cryptocurrency investment platform. In the last 3 months, we have registered a growth of 400%. We are backed by some of the leading investors such as Tiger Global, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital and Sequoia India, some of who have played a key role in building the global crypto industry.

At present, we have over 5 million users on our platform and hope to onboard 15 million users by the end of this year. We also plan to double our team headcount from 150 to 300.

Q) Can you give me a sense of your consumer demographics, in terms of age, gender, geographies? Do you anticipate people from smaller cities will open up to investing on your platform too, in the near future?
While the majority of our users are below 35, we have also been witnessing a lot of traction from senior citizens and users above 45 years of age who are keen to explore this asset class. Interestingly, as much as 45% of users come from smaller cities (Tier 2 and Tier 3).

Q) People are still trying to find their way around cryptocurrency. How safe is it for people to invest in cryptocurrency, considering the government hasn't yet come up with clear guidelines?
Investing in cryptocurrencies is similar to investing in any other asset class and one should invest the amount basis their risk appetite, a fact that holds true for stocks as well.

When regulated, crypto will immensely contribute towards the Indian economy and we are hopeful that the regulators are taking cognizance of this fact.