Bizum wants to make paying in a store with your mobile phone as natural as sending money to a friend. The company expands the territories of use of its service with the arrival of in-person payment to stores and establishments and communicates it with “First times”, a new campaign created by El Ruso de Rocky, which we have accessed for the first time since reason.Whywhich uses humor to address precisely a particularity of this launch: Bizum has not been the first to reach this terrain.

Instead of avoiding this circumstance, the agency has placed it at the center of the creative idea. Under the premise that being the first does not always mean doing it better, the spots “Avión” and “Fuego” revisit two great milestones in history – the first flight of an airplane and the discovery of fire – to portray, from humor, first times that would have appreciated a little more time.

The campaign thus uses an apparent disadvantage as a creative argument to present Bizum’s entry into in-person payment. “It is always more comfortable to announce that you are the first”acknowledges Ángel Torres, General Creative Director of El Ruso de Rocky, in statements to reason.Why. However, the agency found the opportunity precisely there: “History is full of first times that could be improved.” For Torres, Bizum’s objective was not “come running”but to do it in an easy, recognizable and coherent way with the relationship that the brand already maintains with millions of people. “The apparent difficulty ended up giving us the campaign”he explains.

Beyond the advertising concept, the launch represents a new step in the extension of Bizum towards payment moments that transcend the transfers between individuals with which it achieved popularity in Spain. The new modality allows you to make contactless payments with your mobile phone directly from your bank account and is being progressively deployed. It can be used through Bizum Pay or through the applications of those banking entities that enable the functionality.

For the company, the challenge is not so much in teaching the consumer a new mechanic as in being able to transfer to physical commerce a behavior that is already deeply established in other contexts. “The challenge is not to teach how to pay”says Lorena Poza, head of Marketing and Communication at Bizum, in statements to reason.Why. The ambition is to ensure that the more than 30 million people who already use Bizum also incorporate the brand into their in-person payments.

The strategy outlines a progressive expansion of the moments in which Bizum wants to be present. First were payments between people; then came donations and electronic commerce payments; and now the company addresses purchases in physical establishments. In Poza’s words, behind all these movements there is the same purpose: “change habits at the time of payment.” Thus, heThe aspiration expressed by the company is broad: “We want to be the favorite payment method of Spanish society.”

That growth also poses a branding challenge. Bizum has built a good part of its notoriety and its relationship with users around a very specific action to the point that its name has entered everyday language. Now you must expand the uses associated with the brand without diluting the attributes that explain that familiarity. “For Bizum it is crucial to grow in uses without changing the essence”says Poza, who considers that the brand has been “created collectively by an entire society.” For this reason, he assures that the company will continue looking for new moments in which Bizum is useful, but maintaining “the same simplicity and closeness” that has characterized its development until now.

That simplicity also conditioned the creative approach of “First Times.” Faced with a demonstrative campaign dedicated to explaining step by step how the new system works, Bizum and El Ruso de Rocky have chosen to concentrate the functional message and dedicate the bulk of the pieces to building notoriety and memory.

“The advantage is that what we had to say fits in one sentence: now you can also pay with Bizum in physical stores”explains Torres. The agency could spend a good part of the thirty seconds of the spot showing where the user should click, but understood that it was more useful to simply communicate that this possibility already exists.
The simplicity of the functionality allows, according to the creative, the advertising idea itself to do the rest of the work: “Give it notoriety, memory and a recognizable Bizum tone.”

The campaign thus continues the humorous territory that Bizum and El Ruso de Rocky have been building in their latest works. But the agency claims to work with a rule to prevent humor from functioning solely as a resource to attract attention and losing ties with the advertiser. “If we remove the logo and anyone can sign it, we have a problem”summarizes Torres. The intention is that the humor comes from Bizum’s own personality and his way of simplifying situations related to money. And there is another element in favor of this strategy: the presence that the brand has achieved in everyday language. “Bizum is already part of the way people talk, so we try to make its campaigns also speak like it does”.

The production of “First Times” was carried out by Central Films Spain, with Rodrigo García Saiz as director. The two spots transfer the same idea to very different historical universes and make the setting, the staging and the cinematographic treatment part of the humorous mechanism itself.

“First Times” will be launched on September 21 with the spots “Avión” and “Fuego”, available in different durations, and will also have a graphic campaign for outdoor and digital. The strategy will have a presence on television, cinema, digital, social networks and abroad. Sound Media Mad is responsible for media planning and management.