Truecaller out with first digital campaign for 'Call Reason'

A month after introducing the ‘Call Reason’ feature, smartphone application Truecaller has now released the first digital campaign for it. Two short films ‘Waaris’ and ‘Kidnap’, which are each about five minutes long, will be released as a part of the campaign on the brand’s social media platforms. The trailer for the first film was launched earlier this week.

Call Reason allows Truecaller users to see the reason why someone’s calling them, and lets them send a reason when they’re calling someone. The feature was launched by the brand in October in line with requests for the same by (Truecaller) users.

In an exclusive interview with afaqs!, the brand says that each of the two films feature archetypal, Bollywood-esque drama, where the protagonist has to accept or decline a call in a life-changing situation. Both films have two endings, one where the protagonist accepts the call and the other where he declines it. Each ending comes with its own hard-hitting consequences. The catch - if only there was a Call Reason popping up in these calls, the protagonist would have made an informed decision to accept or decline.

Speaking about the films, Manan Shah, director of marketing, Truecaller, tells afaqs!, “Call Reason is a feature that has been the most requested addition by our users. This campaign brings forth the possibilities of how one call, whether accepted or rejected, could impact your life. Call Reason enables users to make a more informed choice and #TakeTheRightCall. We are super excited with this feature, and hope our community will love it and the campaign around it too.”

Ideated and conceptualised by Wirality Media in collaboration with M.O.M. (Mortals On Mission) Content Studio, Truecaller Call Reason ‘Stories’ come with a message to #TakeTheRightCall, and how taking the right or wrong call can turn your life upside down.

Pranav Harihar Sharma, writer and director of the films, tells us that the idea behind the long format videos was to treat it like feature films rather than ads. “We did not want to do a cut-to-demo kind of film. We treated them like a feature films, more like web series, with a simple story. Hence, we called it Call Reason ‘Stories’.”

“The idea was to communicate about the feature with a woven narrative around it”

Sharma shares with us that the videos were shot on a large scale within two days (one film a day). He came up with the ‘reverse technique’ for the films.

Once the films were shot, Sharma says, “We thought when we are treating it like a feature film, why not release a trailer and a poster for it. So, we went ahead with it.”

Speaking about the campaign, Sourya bhattacharjee, creative head, Wirality Media, says, "Till now, calls were a game of 'guess why?', with only a caller ID. But now 'Call Reason' changes the way you accept and decline a call. How? To drive this thought home we created two scenarios through our films, where accepting and declining a call can be a total life-changer."

He adds, "We wanted to show how a simple decision to accept and decline a call can turn your life upside down, unless you actually had a 'Call Reason'."

To Saanand Warrier, CEO, Wirality Media, this is one of our most exciting campaigns. "With our philosophy of art and math we have pushed the boundaries and expectations with our work," he says.

The social extension of the campaign includes informative, engaging and user-generated content to raise awareness for the Call Reason feature.

Along with introducing the Call Reason feature, Truecaller had also introduced 'Schedule SMS' and 'SMS Translate' feature in October. Schedule SMS extends the platform’s caller ID feature to enable users to schedule a message reminder of any events, meetings, or what groceries you need to pick up at the end of the day.

The SMS Translate feature allows users to instantly translate the content of their messages directly in Truecaller without leaving the app. This feature works for both SMS and instant messages (IM). All these features will be free for all (Truecaller) users.

Credits:

Brand: Truecaller India
Agency : Wirality Media, Bangalore
CEO: Saanand Warrior
Idea & Creative Head : Sourya Bhattacharjee
Account head: karan Verma
Writer-Director: Pranav Harihar Sharma
Production Company : M.O.M. (Mortals On Mission), Mumbai
Producer: Darpan Trisal
Director-Operations: Reena Oberoi
Director(s) of Photography : Emil Ashok
Executive Producer: Vikash Arya
Music Director : Hanif Shaikh
Sound Mixing engineer: Farhad K. Dadyburjor
Sound Design: Shubhankar
Sound Studio: Tribute
Editor (Offline/Online/Grade/VFX) : Protim Khound
AD : Raja Dwivedi
Art Director - Martand Mishra
Casting Company: M.O.M. (Mortals On Mission), Mumbai
Cast: Lilliput, Aakash Dabhade, Puja Jha, Dr. Yakub Syed