Paytm's new ad targeting demonetization ignites debate about India's cashless society

In the aftermath of India’s bold move to demonetize its most circulated currency notes, mobile wallet apps are witnessing an unprecedented growth. Naturally, they are going above and beyond with marketing to tap new users to go cashless. But top player Paytm may have gone too far over the weekend with one such ad.

The company posted a scripted ad in which a woman explains the difficulties invalidation and shortage of cash has imposed on her and millions of people alike. How do they pay maids who typically accept only hard paper cash? She adds, "Sure you didn’t care about us, but you [government] should have at least thought about such people [maid]". To which, her maid promptly cuts her short in the middle and says, "stop the drama, Paytm karo". (Paytm karo is the app's punchline in Hindi, which translates to "Use Paytm".)

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Little did Paytm know that its shorter than one-minute ad would offend so many people. Expressing their disgust with Paytm’s condescending tone, several people threatened its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma on Twitter of uninstalling and leaving the app. The ad was soon taken down with Sharma thanking people for the feedback.

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Paytm, which is India's largest mobile wallet service, along with competitors Ola Money and Freecharge, is seeing astronomical growth in downloads, new user registrations and daily transactions. The company said Monday it is handling five million transactions a day and is on its way to process Rs 240 billion ($3.54 billion), which it believes makes it the largest payment company in the country.

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Paytm has had a good run so far, even with its ads. Last week Sharma's response to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who had criticized Prime Minister Modi for appearing on a Paytm ad, was lauded by many. India remains a sensitive place with people possessing strong believes about almost anything and everything.

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In the meantime, Paytm reuploaded the ad today with some modification. The company had removed the "stop the drama" line from the ad, with the maid now saying "please don't worry about us, use Paytm."

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