One-Click Payments
How a single tap settles a payment on PayZapp.
Casestudy / HDFC BANK
How we helped India's largest private sector bank promote its flagship finance app
Industry
Banking
Geography
India
Format
2D Animation
800K+views on the hero video
5M+app downloads
7+videos produced
125shero runtime
PayZapp is a payments app by HDFC Bank that lets customers pay, receive and request money on the go. E-commerce and digital payments were just starting to take off in India, and it was the perfect moment for an app like PayZapp — if customers could be shown how simple it was to use.
HDFC Bank is one of India's largest private-sector lenders and, in 2016, the country's most valuable bank by market capitalisation. It has appeared on the Forbes list of the 100 most valuable global brands eight times.
- Client
- HDFC Bank
- Industry
- Banking & FinTech
- Geography
- India
- Service
- 2D Explainer Video
- Deliverables
- A 7+ video series
- Website
- hdfc.bank.in
In their words
Apart from the top-notch quality of their work, what really impressed me was how seamlessly we were able to navigate the project because of their solid work process. They have a great recipe of creative storytelling and smart marketing.
The Challenge: Explaining Digital Payments to a Nation New to Them
Digital payments and mobile banking were still new to India, and the audience needed to be shown how simple, safe and effective they were. HDFC had a customer base of more than 12 million users to reach — fast.
- Reach a massive audience across many channels, as quickly as possible.
- Something easy to share with existing customers.
- Explain the product and its benefits in a very short time.
- Interesting enough that busy people would actually pay attention.
The Solution: A 2D Animated Explainer Video
An explainer video was the perfect fit for PayZapp's young, online audience:
- A digital asset HDFC could push through social media, search, email and WhatsApp at once.
- Reusable everywhere — the Play Store listing, marketing emails, the landing page, even investor pitches.
- Animation makes a dry banking concept genuinely engaging, in visuals and story.
- It shows exactly how the app works, so customers know the look and feel before they download.
How We Made It
Discovery & brief
A questionnaire and a working session with HDFC's marketing and creative leads to lock the message and the audience.
Scripting
Finding the balance between a story the audience relates to and a message that drives action.
Storyboarding
Sketching every frame with its description and voice-over before a pixel was animated.
Illustration & style frames
Characters, backdrops and a colour palette tuned to HDFC's brand for instant recognition.
Animation
Bringing the style frames to life, frame by frame, with sound effects synced to the action.
Music & voice-over
An original score that lifts after PayZapp appears, and an Indian voice-over that fits the audience.
Inside the film
One story, told in scenes the audience recognised
We built the script around a young couple and the everyday moments PayZapp makes easier — a relatable story first, the product second. Here are a few beats from the finished film.
The Thinking Behind the Script
The primary audience for PayZapp was young, tech-savvy individuals, so the story had to appeal to that base. Here's the thinking behind each scripting decision:
| What we wanted to do | How we did it | Why we did it like that |
|---|---|---|
| Tell a story the audience could relate to. | A young couple, and scenes from their everyday life. | Relatable stories were the best way to carry the message to the target customers. |
| Highlight the customer's pain points first. | We showed how online payments today aren't as fast or convenient as we'd hope. | Naming the pain first makes the viewer value the solution more. |
| Translate the pain point into an emotion. | A scene where the man is embarrassed, unable to pay for dinner. | People buy on emotion, not fact — now the pain is felt, not just understood. |
| Show how to use the app. | We walked through registration and making a payment. | Previewing the app shows users its real look and feel before they download. |
How HDFC Used the Video
Explainer videos are flexible by nature. HDFC put this one to work across nearly every channel they had:
- Email: embedded in newsletters to market directly to existing customers.
- Landing page: front and centre on the PayZapp page of the HDFC website.
- Facebook: posted to their page and amplified with ad campaigns.
- YouTube: shown to channel subscribers and run as a targeted ad to 22–35 year olds.
- WhatsApp: a sub-16MB cut delivered so it could be shared in-app.
- Play Store: on the PayZapp listing, previewing the app to reinforce the download decision.
- Support chats: used to answer common queries the video already addressed.
Impact
800K+ views in a niche where rivals struggled to be seen
To put the numbers in perspective: PayZapp's competitor apps barely registered with their own explainer videos. Ours crossed 800,000 views — and the app went on to more than 5 million downloads on the Play Store by April 2017. HDFC was happy enough to commission 7+ more videos for PayZapp, reusing the same central characters for consistency.
800K+views on the hero video
5M+app downloads by April 2017
7+follow-up videos commissioned
Explainer video series · PayZapp
One Video Became a Series
The hero film worked so well that HDFC came back for more. We kept the same central characters across the series, so every new video reinforced the last.
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Work with us
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