Cashify, India’s leading e-commerce platform for buying and selling pre-owned smartphones, has unveiled its latest campaign, ‘Phone Wala Shagun’, putting a fresh and humorous spin on traditional wedding customs. Departing from the age-old practice of gifting cash at weddings, the campaign creatively proposes a more relevant and tech-savvy alternative: gifting unused smartphones.
With a blend of satire and strategy, the campaign addresses a striking reality—India houses millions of idle smartphones, often stored as “backups” or simply forgotten in drawers. Yet, more than 300 million users become eligible for smartphone upgrades each year. ‘Phone Wala Shagun’ aims to unlock the untapped value in this dormant inventory by nudging users to resell and recycle rather than hoard.
Launched across Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and Meta, the campaign is timed to tap into the pre-festive upgrade wave, encouraging new user acquisition, driving first-time resellers, and embedding resale behaviour into India’s broader cultural narrative.
By replacing the conventional envelope of shagun with something far more useful in the digital era, Cashify not only sparks a laugh but also sparks a movement—one where resale becomes second nature, and every old phone finds new purpose.
At the heart of the campaign is a short film set in a vibrant Indian wedding, where the dulha arrives wearing a garland of old phones instead of cash, and guests gift used phones in place of the traditional lifafa. What follows is chaos, laughter, and one simple realization that old phones aren’t junk, they’re uncashed currency.
Talking about the campaign, Nakul Kumar, Co-founder & CMO of Cashify, said, “India doesn’t have a resale problem. It has a mindset problem. People don’t think of old phones as assets. With this campaign, we’re not just flipping a cultural tradition, we’re reframing how people see value. Our long-term vision is to embed resale into everyday decision-making. Resale shouldn’t be reactive, it should be reflexive. A default part of the digital ownership journey. This campaign is the first step in making that shift mainstream.”
To bring the concept alive with authenticity, cultural nuance, and humour, Cashify onboarded Dhindora Media, a content and creator-led storytelling studio known for building relatable narratives for Gen Z and millennial audiences.
Jai Sahni of Dhindora Media shared, “Cracking this idea was no easy feat. Phone resale is a tricky category. It doesn’t naturally lend itself to everyday, relatable moments. We kept digging until a simple, quirky thought clicked: weddings are full of cash exchanges… what if, instead of cash, people started gifting their old phones? That became the spark for this film. It was a joy collaborating with the team at Cashify to bring this idea to life, right from scripting to execution. Always exciting when a brand is willing to have fun while solving a real problem.”
The ‘Phone Wala Shagun’ campaign signals Cashify’s evolution from a resale platform to a circular living brand that combines speed and trust with relevance and storytelling. It follows the success of ‘Lie Hard’, Cashify’s satirical content IP, and marks the beginning of a long-term brand play where cultural relevance drives recall and trust.
Phone Wala Shagun marks the beginning of a long-term cultural storytelling platform that Cashify will roll out through 2025. With content-led properties like Lie Hard and an upcoming slate of festive and everyday-life campaigns, Cashify is redefining resale as a more intelligent lifestyle choice, not just a utility service.
Cashify is betting on empathy, value, and effortless experience in a crowded, unorganized second-hand tech market. While the platform promises fast payments, doorstep pickup, and total data safety, it truly sets itself apart by shifting mindsets—by making resale socially relevant, culturally integrated, and even cool.
