Win with InMobi: Truecaller mobile experiment shows how to scam the scam callers

How many times have you received calls with some vague sales pitch, or being told that your bank account/ mobile number will be blocked unless you complete your ‘KYC’, or your electricity connection will be disconnected as your last payment has not been updated or the most hilarious of all, that you have won a lottery or been left a huge amount by an unknown beneficiary. The end objective is the same – conning you to share your bank account number or credit card number and other details such as OTP with the caller and causing monetary loss to you.

Before dismissing such calls as a laugh, take this information into consideration – as per industry reports, India ranks fourth globally in terms of scam calls and spam telemarketing calls. The web-series ‘Jamtara’ is an informative delve into the murky world of phone phishing operations. Scam calls are at an all-time high in India, especially during the festive season as scammers attempt to hoodwink users into falling for their schemes, robbing many of their wallets and peace of mind.

There is an urgent need to address this menace, and being properly informed is one of the main ways for this. Truecaller has been playing a pivotal role in helping users identify, block and report such scam calls, saving them from tele frauds. The brand had launched #JamTheScam, a marketing initiative featuring the sibling vigilante duo – Jesse and Jamie Lever – in 2020. The Levers turned the tables by calling scammers and wasting their time, taking the comical route to spread awareness on serious concerns like tele scams.

Given the tremendous response received for this campaign, Truecaller launched #JamTheScamReturns with legendary comedian Johnny Lever in 2021, who joined the fun with his kids, Jesse and Jamie, in jamming scammers. The brand aimed to spread the word on its new #JamTheScamReturns series among Indian smartphone users through meaningful marketing.

Truecaller decided to launch an innovative mobile campaign that captured the eyeballs of audiences and effectively engaged them while raising awareness against the menace of spam calls during the festive season.

To execute this powerful campaign, Truecaller partnered with Wirality Media and InMobi. Adopting InMobi’s precision targeting and state-of-the-art creative suite, the brand delivered an educative message through a comical sequence.

The success of any campaign is dependent on whether it is addressing the right audience. The brand used InMobi Audiences with the aim to reach out to the busiest users in India who were most hassled by spam calls, and identified business professionals, upscale residents, corporate decision-makers, and frequent flyers as the target audiences. By leveraging accurate location intelligence, the brand polygon-mapped key areas of interest of these niche audiences and successfully synced user behaviour in the virtual and real worlds.

Truecaller approached this by designing a full-screen interstitial, simulating the experience of receiving an incoming call on the screens of ad viewers. Leveraging advanced visuals, the brand designed this innovative experience with instant buttons to answer or decline the incoming call.

Users who perceived the simulated phone call as an unwanted call, or spam, declined the call. Upon declining, a short 20-second ‘Jam the Scam Returns’ video appeared on their mobile screens, depicting the pivotal role Truecaller plays in identifying spam/ scam calls.

On the other hand, users who chose to answer the simulated phone call were shown a full-screen, interstitial video educating them about spam calls and how Truecaller can help detect them and take appropriate action of blocking or reporting the call. The video drew attention to the fact that over 8.5 billion scam calls ruined the festive spirit for residents across the country, and with Truecaller, one can expertly avoid the scam this year.

Upon watching the 20-second video, users could click on the CTA ‘Watch video on YouTube’ to watch the full-length videos of the #JamtheScamReturns series, where they could get their dose of Johnny Lever’s entertaining performance while learning about how Truecaller can indeed deliver spam-safe experiences.

The results of this engaging mobile experience were very positive and effective, with 3.8x engagement recorded. Truecaller reached 3.6 million unique users in just one week. Hyderabad saw the highest engagement rate of 4.3x. The shorts featuring Johnny Lever and his kids were highly popular, with one in 3x engaged users watching the full videos of #JamTheScamReturns.