SimplyMarry.com to spend Rs 6-7 crore on new campaign

The matrimonial site is launching a new campaign on the internet, print and TV to target the youth in metros. Half of the advertising budget will be spent on online adevrtising

Riding on the premise that young people today look for a 'metro-minded' match, SimplyMarry.com -- the matrimonial site of Times Business Solutions -- is launching a new ad campaign. With the campaign, the matrimonial site is focusing on the young people residing in metros who are looking for a life partner.

SimplyMarry.com to spend Rs 6-7 crore on new campaign

Rajat Gandhi

Rajat Gandhi, business head, Times Business Solutions, says, "We expect to spend around Rs 6-7 crore on the whole campaign.” Gandhi plans to allocate 50 per cent of the amount on online ads, while 30 per cent will be allocated to print campaigns and the remaining 20 per cent will be spent on TV. Of course, a part of the ad spend will be within the Times of India group, in which Times Business Solutions is a company.

The campaign is targeted at the youth in the top 10 metro cities in India. Gandhi explains, "It's not just about staying in a metro city, we are targeting youth having metropolitan mindsets and aspirations".

The print ad. Click here
for bigger image.

The print advertising has already rolled out and published in the group's in-house publications. The campaign will be advertised online in the form of banners on Yahoo! India, Indiatimes, the Komli network, Google Network in the next 10 days. The company also plans to launch viral videos as part of the campaign, following the display advertising. A TVC around the campaign is also on the cards and will be released by the end of January 2008.

The creatives for the campaign have been designed by SimplyMarry's creative agency, Mudra Communications. Speaking about the brief given to their agency, Gandhi says, "We told them that we want to be the first choice of the metro youth when it comes to finding a partner through a matrimonial site".

The campaign has been conceived by Bobby Pawar, national creative director, Mudra Communications, who is also the copywriter of the ads, along with Ullas Chopra, executive creative director, and Milind Palav, Mudra Communications, Delhi.

Talking about the campaign, Pawar says, "Every marriage site talks about finding the right match, but this site can help one find the metro-kind of a match. The whole campaign is about idiosyncrasies of being married. We've shed some humourous light on the subject of marriage. It is a modern take on marriage.” Pawar adds that the agency is working with TribalDDB India, also part of Mudra Marketing Services.

Gandhi claims that 80 per cent of the profiles on SimplyMarry.com come from metros. Post the campaign, the company expects to receive 15,000 profile registrations every day, up from the 8,000 it currently receives.

Gandhi says, “When we launched SimplyMarry.com, we had this strategy of being an urban metro-living youth-focused brand.” The new campaign, says Gandhi, is no shift in strategy but a continuation of its earlier strategy.

SimplyMarry was launched in November 2006 and claims to have five lakh registered users till date. Recently, the site also launched MarryZine, an e-magazine on matrimony-related matters.

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