Plus Gold’s digital gold platform leverages association with investor-brand ambassador Sonakshi Sinha

The brand also released an ad campaign with Sinha on the day of Akshaya Tritiya and saw a huge uptick in active transactions on the app

Mumbai: While moving its assets from a P2P lending to a digital gold platform in February 2024, Plus Gold has appointed actor Sonakshi Sinha as the brand ambassador after the actor became an investor for the company following the brand’s participation in ‘Shark Tank Season 3’.

This development took shape after the brand went live with the upgraded version of its mobile application, the third version of the app, which has seen 2 lakh downloads in the last three months. To mark this association, the brand also released an ad campaign with Sinha on the day of Akshaya Tritiya and saw a huge uptick in active transactions on the app.

Raj Parakh, Founder, Plus Gold said, “Getting interest from Sonakshi is one of the biggest accelerations in our journey. We wanted someone in the team who can help us to build trust within a very mature market of saving schemes. In the Gold savings market you need lineage, presence and maturity and Sonakshi is the rare combination of all of the above, her 29M million followers on Instagram are just a Plus. Since gold purchase is intuitive for Indian consumers, the trust factor eases the decision-making in gold purchase and investment.” He added that the actor’s handle on Instagram @aslisona, is a serendipitous element which is boosting the positive response from consumers.

The collaboration has resulted in the brand seeing boosted clickthrough rates on their website and a 30 – 40% uptick in general from its regular numbers, an indication of increased interest among users, further reiterating the need for trust in gold investment. On the day the association went live, the brand got 80,000 to 1 lakh hits on its website from users who actively engaged with the website other than the 60,000 users on Plus Gold app.

The brand also organised a campaign with its new brand ambassador wherein it offered a 2% off on the value of digital gold, attracting more end users to the brand and helping them understand the brand’s value proposition due to its association with a reputed celebrity.

Given Indian consumers’ strong affinity for gold, Sonakshi and Plus have showcased the app’s security features. The app ensures that the digital gold purchased by consumers is backed by physical gold, reassuring users about their investments’ safety and authenticity, thereby enhancing trust and promoting the app’s reliability. Moreover, the brand has also garnered the interest of a few large retail chains after the announcement of the collaboration.

“We have leveraged this association from the point of view of explainers, as the brand ambassador herself is explaining how the app or digital gold works. So, the critical points for end-consumers, in case they drop off the application or are confused, will be explained by a recorded message in Sonakshi’s voice; this is helping our final conversions to improve,” said Parakh.

Also, based on the upgrade of the Plus Gold app alone, which has been downloaded 40,000 times after Akshay Tritiya, the brand has seen an impressive increase in high-ticket purchases from many users in the range of SIPs worth 8-10 grams per month. “The average savings on our application per month are at about Rs 6,000 and high-ticket users are saving Rs 50,000 – 60,000 per month,” added Parakh.

Apart from the association with Sonakshi Sinha, the brand is also collaborating with micro-influencers, which has been useful for regional outreach and to drive conversions.

Written by Aparna Bhowmick

Retail Jeweller India Exclusive