Letgo, the mobile app that allows users to buy and sell used good locally, has released a series of new ads, encouraging people to sell the stuff they don’t need anymore.
One of the spots features a young woman asking her sister why they still have two vacuums. The latter explains that mom gave it to them, so she felt bad getting rid of it. As she says that, she opens the closet door and her mom, illustrating a vacuum, falls to the floor, without making a movement. When the other sibling tries to say that’s not a good reason to keep two vacuums in an apartment, she is interrupted by the vacuum sound (made by their mother) and the explanation (given by her sister) that it still works great. “Things are just things,” an onscreen line reads at the end of the spot, which also features the voiceover urging viewers to snap, post and sell with letgo, before adding the tagline “it’s time to let go”.
One of the other two commercials features a pregnant woman who tells her husband it’s hard for her to give up their second car because it was her college car and she and her friends used to have so much fun in it. The other commercial features a couple packing for their move, who have a conversation about a juicer: while he wants to take it, because it was a wedding gift from his brother, she is reluctant to the idea, reminding him they never use it. At this point, he takes an apple and gives to his brother, who’s portrying the large juicer in a box and turns it into juice.
Launched in January 2015 by Alec Oxenford, former CEO of OLX, letgo raised, in the same year, US$100 million and was later labeled as “the biggest and fastest growing app to buy and sell locally”. While it initially targeted the US market, the app launched internationally: in October 2016 it launched in Canada and in November 2016 in Norway. The company enlisted ad agencies Crispin Porter + Bogusky Miami and CP+B Miami to create ad campaigns for it. As of January 2018, the Letgo app had about 75 million downloads, compared to 30 million in August 2016.
