Rakhi Sawant explaining loan stacking in fluent English wasn’t on my bingo card this year. But Sawant has been all over, from protests to parties, and CRED never disappoints with its quirky collaborations.
With a deadpan she looks and delivers, “Alas, not all of us have the fortune required for the fresh mountain air of the Alps. Thus, I have relocated to this metro. I find the crowd atmospheric.”
Indian advertising continues to turn internet personalities into commercial gold, from Vada Pav girl, ganji chudail, Puneet Superstar and now Rakhi Sawant.
Rahul Dravid became the famously short-tempered “Indiranagar ka gunda”; Jackie Shroff was put through Zumba; other campaigns have mined the nostalgia attached to 1990s Bollywood and pop culture.
Joining this league of extraordinary reversals, Neeraj Chopra flipped his soft-spoken, golden-boy image by playing five wildly enthusiastic avatars. Meanwhile, Ravi Shastri leaned heavily into his notorious “party-boy” persona.
Their formula has been about taking a celebrity, putting them somewhere nobody expects to see them. So, it was only about time they got Sawant on board. And the collaboration, as expected, didn’t disappoint.
Sawant is dressed in a winter wardrobe, surrounded by white peaks. Except she isn’t in the Alps. She is in a metro and is talking about something as dry as compound interest. And Sawant explains it without the vocabulary normally associated with financial education.
Financial literacy usually arrives with seriousness. Everyone assumes that because the subject is important, the communication itself has to be serious. Rakhi looked serious, talked seriously, but the ad was definitely not serious.
When Sawant starts explaining loan stacking, she breaks down the chaotic debt spiral with total serious clarity: “One borrows, then cannot repay. So one borrows again to repay the first along with interest, then a third to repay the second, then a fourth…”
Before she can count any higher, an off-screen voice cuts her off, saying, “Rakhi, I think they got it. You can move on.”
She then transitions to compound interest, dropping all the heavy math and delivering the mechanism with a brilliant philosophy.
“Compound interest is a miracle when you’re earning it, but real when you’re paying it. You never escape a loan… you just keep feeding it until you arrive at the most amazing stage of financial ruin, or as experts call it…,” she says before the metro suddenly brakes and Sawant is flung into the air and lands on her face.
She then looks up and completes the sentence, “…the Great Depression.”
‘Addressing gaps with humour and clarity’
CRED Foundation’s USP is to be on the opposite side of the table. They first get the attention of the audience through such antics and then teach them something.
Therefore, Sawant’s casting is more than a celebrity stunt. You may not remember the technical definition of loan stacking, but you are more likely to remember being told about it by Sawant in a winter costume inside a metro.
The Sawant ad is also the first campaign from CRED Foundation, the company’s Section 8 not-for-profit initiative aimed at financial literacy, consumer awareness and responsible credit.
Miten Sampat, CRED’s interim CEO, described the foundation’s objective as addressing gaps in financial understanding “with humour and clarity”, calling the campaign a first step toward making financial literacy a right for every Indian.
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Overuse of Rakhi Sawant
The commercial was released two days ago. And the comment section is calling it a “genius” move.
Now, Sawant has always been a spectacle, and brands have figured out how to cash in on it. From being the punchline to delivering one-liners, the actor has become an advertising shortcut for brands looking to grab eyeballs. And honestly, the strategy is beginning to feel overdone.
She has spent years building a public persona that thrives on controversy, unapologetic theatrics and an almost uncanny ability to keep herself in the conversation. Love her or roll your eyes at her, she knows how to hold your attention.
For advertisers, this becomes attractive. She brings instant recall, meme-worthy moments and the kind of unpredictability that can make an otherwise forgettable commercial go viral.
But there is a thin line between leveraging someone’s popularity and exhausting their appeal. Brands seem determined to squeeze every last drop out of the Rakhi Sawant phenomenon.
The problem is that shock value has a shelf life. And Sawant isn’t different. She has sort of become less of a cultural disruptor and more of a convenient marketing gimmick.
After all, when everyone is trying to milk the same cow, even the most entertaining act can start feeling a little stale.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)