Xpress Money is a global money transfer brand which aids millions of migrants to send money back home to their folks. Indians and Pakistanis who share a long history together form the major customer base, and also happen to be dominant migrant communities.

1. An Xpress Money initiative
Case Study

2. Background
Strategy
Outcome
Insight
Tactics
Campaign
Objectives
Key
Takeaways
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

3. Background
Xpress Money is a leading international money
transfer brand which helps millions of migrants
around the world send remittances back to
their loved ones. Two of the dominant migrant
communities, that also form a sizeable portion
of Xpress Money’s customer base, are Indians and
Pakistanis. With its presence across 150 countries,
Xpress Money has a wealth of experience in dealing
with customers of both these nationalities.
Besides their geographical borders, these two
South Asian countries share a number of things
in common. Both nations celebrate their respective
Independence Days in August, a day apart from
each other. And this fact becomes a point of
contention, since it brings back memories of a
tumultuous past between the two countries.
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

4. Insight
The atmospheres in both these countries
generally propagate a sense of rivalry and
mutual distrust between the citizens. The
overriding feeling is that Indians and
Pakistanis are poles apart, and can never
be friends.
However, Xpress Money has discovered that
miles away from their home countries living
in the UAE, Indians and Pakistanis respect each
other and live together in harmony.
Why such stark difference in behaviours?
What makes the expats of these countries
live in such harmony #beyondborders, while
they are at loggerheads back home in their
respective countries. Do they have anything
in common? What do they share in common?
Xpress Money through this initiative
#beyondborders went about finding the
reasons of this harmony in Dubai, where
Xpress Money has its headquarters. A melting
pot of cultures, the desert metropolis of Dubai
provided the perfect foil for the brand to carry
on with its experiment.
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

5. Campaign
Objectives
•To position Xpress Money as a brand that
understands the emotional nuances of the
customers it serves
•To highlight the camaraderie that exists
between Indians and Pakistanis when they
live away from home
•Create positive word of mouth and feel
good factor for Xpress Money
•Increase remittances to India and Pakistan
during the month of August (Independence
Day Month) by a minimum of 5% compared
to 2014
•Position Xpress Money as a brand that
connects with all expats, beyond borders
•To increase engagement with our fans on
Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn,
large majority of who come from India and
Pakistan
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

6. Strategy
Building on our insight that Indians and Pakistanis live in harmony
away from their home countries, the campaign focused on things that
unite people beyond borders. It could be tangible similarities such as
love for food, music, culture, sports, or even the intangible ones,
including dreams of unity, peace and harmony back home.
The campaign was divided into two distinct phases.
Phase I was carried out in the
month of August, timed to
coincide with the
Independence Day of the
two nations and was largely
driven by video content.
Phase II was in October
– Xpress Money associated
with an onground event that
brought together two cricketing
legends, Sachin Tendulkar
andWasimAkram.This‘Cricket
and Beyond’ event, was a
culmination of the brand’s
#beyondborders campaign.
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

7. Phase I
• Conversations with Indians and Pakistani nationals living in the
UAE, made into a series of video interviews that covered things that
go #beyondborders
Highlights
Highlighted aspects of life which erase differences between the
people of two countries, such as:
Music Entertainment
and movies
Living together
in a foreign landSports
• The video interviews brought out the
power of shared human experiences
that have a unifying effect on people
• To establish the fact that this similarity
of thought ran across social strata
and income profiles, two entirely
different demographic profiles were
spoken to, that included
- White collared, skilled expats
- Blue collared, migrant workers
living in labour camps
• Online and offline integration with
activities organized for celebrating
the two independence days at labour
camps in Dubai
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

8. Phase II
This phase of the campaign was run on social channels, Twitter and
Facebook and was rolled out in early October. Banking on the love
for cricket that both nations share, Phase II was primarily a contest
that leveraged upon a sponsorship opportunity and encouraged
participation from cricket fans in both India and Pakistan
• Xpress Money sponsored a one on of a kind talk show in Dubai,
which brought together two cricket legends from India and
Pakistan on one platform
• The event was a natural extension of the #beyondborders concept
as it brought together two erstwhile sportstars – Sachin Tendulkar
and Wasim Akram, who were also rivals, on one stage to talk about
their lives playing cricket and beyond
• Fans had the chance to win passes to see their two favorite cricket
legends Sachin Tendulkar and Wasim Akram together in Dubai
There was also personally autographed merchandise up for grabs
for select winners
• Contest was aimed at popularizing the hashtag #beyondborders
and creating buzz on digital channels for the contest
• Encouraging conversations about cricket and the two cricketing
legends on social channels
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

9. A series of 7 videos created
• Two videos each for Music, Sports and
Entertainment
• Focused on cross appreciation and used
people as interesting contrasts
• Indian loving Pakistani Music / Pakistani
loving Bollywood songs
• Pakistani fan of Sachin Tendulkar / Indian
fan of Waqar Younis
• Indian who loves Pak TV serials/ Pakistani
who loves Hindi films
• Featured white collared, skilled professionals
1 mega campaign video
• Shot at a labour camp in Dubai
• Showcased blue collared migrant workers
from India and Pakistan
• Highlighted friendships and stories of
brotherhood
• Gave a message of peace, unity and
freedom #beyondborders
Because of the nature of the content, the
videos were primarily promoted on Facebook
and Youtube
• Special playlist created on Xpress Money’s
official channel, titled #beyondborders
- https://goo.gl/1g5wLR
• Also published as In videos on Facebook
• Generated views through Youtube ads
and FB promoted posts
Tactics
PhaseI-A
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

10. PhaseI-B
PhaseI-C
An onground event conducted at a Dubai
labour camp on 14th August, attended by
nearly 800 Indians and Pakistani labourers
• Program included infotainment activities
and competitions
Radio
• The onground event was supported by
Suno FM that had an RJ at the venue
who covered the entire event live on the
radio channel
Major giveaways
• Free movie tickets to a special screening
of Bollywood blockbuster ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’
for 300 people
• One free return air ticket for an Indian
and a Pakistani each
• 400 gift vouchers from a leading jeweler
•A Twitter contest was run between 30th
September – 7th October 2015, and was
also supported by Facebook
•Users were encouraged to tweet/post
using the hashtag #beyondborders and
tell us what borders would they cross to
get a chance to meet their favourite cricket
stars or get autographed merchandise
for them
•Targeted fans living in UAE, India and
Pakistan between the age group of
18-35 years
•Giveaways included
2 Couple passes for UAE residents to
attend the ‘Cricket & Beyond’ talkshow in
Dubai on 9th October 2015.
2 personally autographed bats from Sachin
Tendulkar and 2 personally autographed
balls from Wasim Akram
Win 2
couple passes
to see Sachin and Wasim live
on 9th
October, 2015 in Dubai,
or win cool
autographed merchandise!
To participate:
follow us @Xpress_Money
Tweet using #beyondborders
PhaseII
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

11. • While seemingly different, people from both these nations are
strikingly similar to each other – be it by way of language, food,
culture or even their looks
• There is overwhelming mutual admiration of each other’s
cultures, sports and entertainment
• They are also similar in the dreams that they have for a better
future for themselves and their loved ones, driven by the same
emotions… to see their family happy, safe and prosperous
• When living in a foreign country, individuals from both the
countries provide support to each other
• Intense friendships and camaraderie exists between Indians
and Pakistanis that lived together
• An overriding wish to have peace and unity amongst the people
of the two nations
• The video was well appreciated and garnered many views
• Positive results even on the engagement front on Facebook
Video was liked by 1599 people, and shared by 269 of them.
34 engaged actively with the content by way of comments and
the links on the video were clicked 87,792 times.
The videos reached a total of 961,160 people.
We added 203 New fans on Facebook over a course of 7 days.
43,276
Youtube Views
172,683
Facebook Views
Key Takeaways
In Phase I the focus was on engagement and conversations
around the video content we created. We also wanted to gauge the
audience reaction vis-à-vis the India/ Pakistan sentiment. We found:
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

12. In Phase II the focus was on getting maximum people engaged
with the hashtag and to get it trending. During the course of 7 days
that the contest was run, we found:
• Great enthusiasm in both Twitter & Facebook users to participate
in the contest
• A lot of genuine cricket fans participated in the contest and
were most actively engaged, sharing anecdotes and personal
stories of their admiration of the sport. 38.5% of all tweets that
came in, included media such as pictures and videos uploaded
by the tweeters
• We received a total of
• We received a total of 2,146 mentions and 711 Retweets
• During the entire period we acquired a total of 178 new Followers
• A total of 374 people participated in the Twitter conversations
2,424 Tweets on our
hashtag #BeyondBordersTweet
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

13. The campaign generated positive sentiment towards Xpress Money which reflected not only
in the social conversations and engagement that the campaign received, but also in the
business numbers which saw a spike during Phase I of the campaign.
An analysis of the transaction numbers in August 2015 vs the same period next year showed us:
- Remittances from UAE to India and
Pakistan went up by a combined total of
7% over August 2014
- Global remittances to India and Pakistan
went up by 9% in the month of August over
August 2014
Outcome
- The numbers can be attributed to the
“feel good factor” that Phase I of the
campaign generated towards the brand.
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

14. Tweet India Trends - Change
#FightFrizz
#BeyondBorders
DelhiMLAs
SahityaAkademiAward
JJHospital
Physics
Sanjay Singh
MSMEs
India-Pakistan
#SakshiMaharaj
Tweet
Mumbai Trends - Change
#FightFrizz
#SANDYININDIA
Delhi MLAs
#BeyondBorders
Sahitya Academi Award
#SkrillexWithHungama
JJ Hospital
Physics
Sanjay Singh
MSMEs
Delhi Trends - Change
#FightFrizz
#BeyondBorders
Delhi MLAs
#BeOneup
Police
Indrani Mukerjee
Sahitya Academi Award
Physics
Sanjay Singh
MSMEs
Chennai Trends - Change
#FightFrizz
#SANDYININDIA
Delhi MLAs
#BeyondBorders
Sahitya Academi Award
JJ Hospital
Physics
Sanjay Singh
MSMEs
India-Pakistan
Kolkata Trends - Change
#SANDYININDIA
#Aadhar
Delhi MLAs
#BeyondBorders
JJ Hospital
MSMEs
Sanjay Singh
Sahitya Academi Award
India-Pakistan
NASSCOM
Tweet
The hashtag #beyondborders was one of the most popular ones on Twitter in India, during Phase II of the campaign
It was trending on No.2 across India on 6th October 2015.
It was also trending in the Top 5 across many cities in India, including Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata
#BeyondBorders trended across India for more than 2 hours between 6:15 pm until 8:40 pm IST.
Popular handles in India were tweeting about #beyondborders.
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

15. • Trendinalia India tweeted about our hashtag #BeyondBorders
2 times
• More men engaged with the campaign than women.
Nearly 50%of the viewers in Phase I were male.
• GCC contributed to nearly 48% of all video views, followed by
India at 31%
• Videos appealed to the age group of 1834- most, with 37% of
the views coming in from that category
• India Trends tweeted about our hashtag #BeyondBorders
5 times
• Overall engagement was the highest from the users in India
and Pakistan
• Age group of 2534- engaged the most in terms of likes, comments,
shares, page likes and video views
Tweet Tweet
www.xpressmoney.com#beyondborders

16. www.xpressmoney.com