MAM
WhatsApp unveils latest campaign ‘Scam Se Bacho’
Mumbai: WhatsApp has launched a user-safety campaign titled “Scam Se Bacho,” which will come to life through a music video. The campaign aims to create awareness and educate users on making safer online payments. It is conceptualised by BBDO India and directed by Indian film director and editor Shimit Amin, known for award-winning films like “Chak De! India.”
The “Scam Se Bacho” music video is a parody rendition of the popular evergreen song, “Dekh Ke Chalo,” and it delivers the socially relevant message of user safety in a fun and breezy tone.
The new lyrics demonstrate real-life situations in which individuals could be susceptible to scams and reinforce the message of staying safe and exercising caution while making digital payments. It warns users about scams such as falling for bogus lottery schemes, disclosing your UPI PIN over the phone to a phoney customer service representative, or sending money to a scammer posing as a friend without first verifying their identity.
The goal of the video is to engage the audience through nostalgia and educate them about digital payment safety in the most comforting and memorable way.
Talking about the music video, WhatsApp India director-payments Manesh Mahatme said, “While UPI continues to remain one of the safest, most convenient and interoperable modes of making payments, India’s growing acceptance of online payments has also seen an increase in digital payment fraud. User safety is at the core of everything we do at WhatsApp, and through this exciting and captivating music video, we want to educate and empower our users with all the information they need to safeguard themselves against any fraud while making digital payments. We hope that this initiative by WhatsApp will resonate with people and they can sing their way through safe and secure online payments.”
Talking about the campaign, Meta India director-marketing Avinash Pant said, “India’s growing acceptance of digital payments has also led to an increase in the need to make people aware of how to keep their payments safe. Through this campaign, which is built on several real-world scenarios that people face in their everyday life, our endeavour is to educate and empower users with all the information they need to safeguard themselves against any fraud while making digital payments. This initiative reinforces Whatsapp’s commitment to the safety of our users while making payments as simple and convenient as sending a message.”
Commenting on the creative treatment of the music video, BBDO India chair and chief creative officer Josy Paul said, “Our primary goal with this music video was to spread awareness and engage the audience sensitively on this subject. We decided to create entertainment that educates rather than advertisements. Our goal of reworking a fun, nostalgic song like “Dekh ke Chalo” was to use the power of music to convey a strong message that’ll help people relate to the moments that we collectively face in our lives. The song triggers memory structures that allow the audience to more easily receive the message. We hope it will encourage people to be more aware next time.”
Payments on WhatsApp allow users to send and receive money from their contacts via the unified payment interface (UPI) as easily as sending a WhatsApp message. With user safety at its core, payments on WhatsApp are designed with a strong set of security and privacy principles, including entering a personal UPI PIN for each payment.
MAM
Talking heads: TV9’s chief takes the host’s chair with style — but could do with a laugh
Barun Das has swapped the boardroom for the studio and is pulling off a polished interview show — mostly
MUMBAI: There is something quietly audacious about a media chief who decides that running a television empire is not quite enough and plants himself in front of the camera for a good chinwag with the great and the good. Barun Das, chief executive of TV9 Network, has done precisely that, and for the most part, he carries it off with considerable aplomb.
Duologue with Barun Das, now in its fourth season on JioHotstar, is exactly what it says on the tin: two people, two chairs, no frills. In the earlier seasons, Das has sat across from a rather stellar roster, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Aparna Sen, Viswanathan Anand, Kiran Rao, among many other renowned names. And in the fourth instalment he has had guests of the likes of Aamir Khan, Sourav Ganguly, Bianca Balti (Italian super model and cancer survivor), Lothar Matthäus (German football World Cup-winning captain). Throughout, he has coaxed from them nuggets that their publicists would probably rather keep under wraps. Cricket, relationships, spirituality, acting, health, behind-the-scenes machinations that plague politics, intellect, nepotism, nothing is entirely off the table.
Das’s greatest asset is his manner. Unhurried, well-dressed and disarmingly calm, he has the rare gift of making his guests feel so thoroughly at ease that they occasionally forget they are being filmed for television. The questions arrive softly, like a spinner tossing up a googly rather than a fast bowler hurling bouncers, and more often than not, they draw out a telling answer. He has no cue cards or teleprompter to help him along, which is probably a rarity for a host. Some credit must go to the research team operating quietly in the wings, who evidently do their homework so that Das does not have to fumble for his.
Where Duologue stumbles, however, is in its almost determined refusal to lighten up. Each 45-minute episode carries the solemn weight of a budget speech. A dash of wit, a moment of mischief, the odd belly laugh, none of it makes an appearance. Serious conversation has its place, but even the most earnest of interviewers, think David Frost at his best, knew when to let the air out of the room.
Das has built something worth watching. He simply needs to remind himself, and his guests, that a smile never hurt anyone.
Rating: 4.25 out of 5.
Available on JioHotstar.
