Being able to laugh at yourself is a good look on anyone, and the same is clearly true for brands. inDrive’s latest cashless payments campaign, “Cashless. Finally.”, is an exercise in humility that has paid off, resulting in a driver and rider-targeted campaign that successfully communicated a new payment feature that has, admittedly, already been done.
“In the ride-hailing industry in South Africa, card payments aren’t new, and the challenge became getting drivers and riders to care about a new feature that had already been introduced by others in the industry,” says Mikita Ponarin inDrive’s Africa Marketing Lead “So, when inDrive finally added them, we figured, why not admit that we’re slightly late to the party?”
inLab, inDrive’s in-house creative agency, delivered two audience-focused films for passengers and drivers, playing on the brand’s obvious delay in making physical card payments possible during rides.
Featuring the hilarious Mpho Popps, inDrive joked that it may have been late to the party, “but only because we were busy making rides fairer”, delivering a clever paraphrasing of a popular idiom (“the pigs have finally flown”) to bring the campaign to life, complete with ai-led and designed imagery of flying pigs in the sky.
“The goal was to combine absurd humour and self-irony in a distinctly South African tone,” says Mikita. “Sometimes the best way to launch something new is to admit you should’ve done it sooner.”
An evolving payments landscape
South Africa’s payments landscape has evolved considerably in the last decade alone with the growth in digital adoption across the country, with particular focus on urban centres and online commerce.
Within ride-hailing specifically, the choice of how to pay often depends on context. Some users prefer cash for everyday trips. Others want digital payments when booking for family members, travelling without local currency or moving through areas where access to cash may be limited.
Industry data shows that cards now account for a majority share of eCommerce transactions in South Africa, signalling growing comfort with digital-first payment behaviour. For inDrive, these patterns have been visible in user feedback and city-level research, where riders and drivers consistently pointed to the need for more flexible payment options.
“It was an inevitable next step for inDrive South Africa, having paid close attention to the local market and its needs and expectations, but of course it wasn’t news,” says inDrive country representative, Ashif Black. “The idea of owning that fact and making fun of ourselves reflects what the business is about. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. Our focus remains on fair pricing structures for our riders and drivers and expanding the platform’s features to better cater to their needs.”
