How Matrimony.com captured the awkwardness in marriage conversations
Imagine this scenario: A big fat Indian wedding is on, the elders gossiping and scrutinizing the room for eligible single youngsters, cornering an awkward youngster with a prospective match. This scenario is possibly played out in most Indian wedding and was the inspiration for online matrimonial service, Matrimony.com latest campaign’, ‘Wedding Games’. In reality the well-wishers don’t know what the concerned individual is looking for in their prospective partners. The matching criteria is usually limited to someone from a similar background, social status and not what today’s generation is looking for. The age of marriage has shifted from early to mid-20s two decades ago, to late 20s and early 30s. People have professional goals before they think of settling down. Today, youngsters also want to know and understand the other person before they commit to it. Arjun Bhatia, Chief Marketing Officer, Matrimony.com says, “Youngsters find the interactions about their marriage, during a wedding. We wanted to capture this awkwardness in our communication.” He adds, “With the Olympics on, we thought why not give it a fun twist laced with humour and also a local desi flavour.” With a digital-first campaign in the first phase, the campaign is now in its second phase where it will be further amplified by taking out different cuts of the campaign, making it more relevant for specific audiences. The brand is also collaborating with influencers to further propagate the message.
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A dramatic shift has also been seen in the TG. Bhatia says, “A decade ago, millennials were still in the marriageable age and they were out core TG. However, in the last five years, Gen Zs have entered the marriage age. Currently, the first cohort of Gen Z's are in their mid-twenties.” He continues, “There is a lot of differences between the Millennials and Gen Zs. Millennials saw the shift from TV to digital while Gen Z were born in an age where mobile devices and internet connectivity was a given. Their thought process is very different, their aspirations, what they want to do is very different and the way they interact with our products as well. Earlier people were registering in their early to mid-20s, now women are registering in late 20s while men are registering from late 20s to early 30.” Bhatia says that earlier the compatibility as a criteria was more functional with age, income, occupation and language taking center stage. Now, personality, individualization are important factors. To drive home the message, matrimony.com launched a campaign called Interest Match last year. The campaign, matched two individuals on the platform on a compatibility score standpoint.
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A consistent theme across the brand's communication has been social messaging around women empowerment. Bhatia says, “When it comes to marriage the scales are always tilted towards the males in many aspects. Being a women centric brand is embedded in the DNA of the organization and our product gives women an equal chance to express their personality, their choice and not cave into any kind of pressure. Over a period of time, as the country and women have progressed so has our messaging and themes changed accordingly.” Matrimony.com communication in the initial days was a parent first communication. In the new millennium, it became a family conversation with the girl playing an equal part. The communication then shifted gears to showcase a girl who loved her job and wanted her husband to accept her. The next iteration was the ‘Find Your Equal’ campaign with MS Dhoni which focused on women’s right to equality in a relationship. Continuing with the evolution is now the ‘Wedding Games’. Talking about AI, Bhatia says that ‘AI is a game-changer.’ Matriomony.com utilizes AI to monitor user behaviour online and also to aide users in building individual profiles. Bhatia asks, “Many people don’t know how to express themselves. We are trying to see how we can use AI to help people write about their profile. By entering some important keywords, AI can then help verbalize what you expect from your partner. We also used AI in our latest campaign. I wanted the first draft of ‘Wedding Games’ to be refined so I prompted AI to think like a noisy Punjabi uncle and aunt and what would be the questions they ask in a North Indian wedding. I was surprised to see the responses I got from AI in terms the awkward questions uncles and aunties are likely to ask. I was able to sharpen the communication using AI.” The focus is to bring in the non-category users, such as parents, to understand what are the barriers to coming on to a matchmaking platform. The company also launched a product called Jodi, a vernacular app, targeting blue collared workers, non-graduates, diploma holders etc. To overcome the barriers of online matchmaking, Jodi app – with over 10 million downloads - is priced at one-tenth the price of English first apps like Bharat Matrimony. This helps in straddling across all socio-economic classes. Bhatia says, “Roughly, 100 million weddings happen every year in India. Off this only seven to eight percent of people find a match online. So, that's the headroom.”
Tags : Matrimony Com Arjun Bhatia