Amit Shah, President & Country Head, Corporate Marketing, Branding and Communications, Yes Bank talks about building brand ‘YES BANK’ through innovative marketing concepts and initiatives
By SALONI DUTTA
Q] Yes Bank is in its 11th year, but still the youngest bank in India. How did you work towards building the Yes Bank brand in its initial years?
When we started the bank, there was limited capital that needed to be carefully allocated between growth aspirations of the bank and investments towards brand building and on high decibel media. We chose to do both, albeitwith a difference. We identified 3 strategic pillars: Knowledge Banking, Responsible Banking, Innovation and technology to focus on.As a Greenfield Bank, with no legacy, we had the freedom to build and innovate on our own and at the same time enter intopartnerships with leading organizations like Intel, Wipro etc. These partnerships enabled us to establish a differentiated Banking paradigm. Through Responsible Banking we leveraged our Banking expertise to create meaningful Social Interventions and become relevant to our community and branch serving area as also created sustainable & scalable business opportunities. We decided opt against purecheque book philanthropy (unless in exceptional cases) and donations for the sake of it and rather look at CSR both in thought and in action to create shared value for all our stakeholders. Some of our partnerships and the Responsible Banking methodology have also been documented in various case studies including by Harvard Business School and IESE, Spain. YES BANK also placed strong emphasis on employer branding wherein the Bank championed Professional Entrepreneurshipin the sense that every employee was an entrepreneur in their own sense. This helped YES BANK build trust and transparency and also engage with employees in a more meaningful manner.As the founding architect of the bank, Mr Rana Kapoor, Managing Director& CEO, championed these initiatives from the front in the formative years, as also providing leadership overview even now.He has been on several government panels and industry bodies, Ministry of Trade, IICA, and he has always been leading from the front in creating the YES BANK brand.YES BANK made the most of thought leadership by creating sector focussed knowledge reports which built our brand as a thought leaderin consonance with our tag line: Experience Our Expertise.
We also effectively used our Branches to serve as both marketing and service touchpoints. Every time we opened a branch, we empowered the branch managers to conduct communityled events like a modern day “chaupal” outside of the banking hours. If it was a residential area, then we would invite people and local authorities to discuss issues that were pertinent to them. We were not direct selling a product but being an enabler and the branch effectively served as a community centre..YES BANK currently has over 630 branches, and every month we have at least one or two events at the branch level. This initiative, termed as the YES COMMUNITY programme is one of our most successful community engagement initiatives.In line with our Responsible Banking ethos and focus on Sustainability and Green initiatives, we also created a specially designed YES BANK Money Plant which could be sent to customers.The YES BANK Money Plantwas the country’s first green direct marketinginitiative and lakhs of these money plants have been distributed across the country, to key corporate leaders, government stakeholders and our customers..
All our partnerships with leading national and international publications have also been more than just mere sponsorships and “logo lending”. We have created marquee properties as an equal partner with these institutions. This helps us engage our stakeholders in a better manner as well as create lasting impact for the YES BANK brand. .
Q] How has Yes Bank’s association with IPL fared so far and what are the plans for the upcoming season?
Approximately 3 years ago, the Bank had reached a critical mass in terms of its branch footprint as well as the number of customers. YES BANK was also making the transition to become a full-fledged retail bank and not just remain focussed on Corporate Banking. This was one of the major reasons behind associating with the Indian Premier League. .It was a conscious call, as we were looking for the biggest property in the country, and apart from Bollywood, Cricket has by far the largest following in India. We also have a 360 degree campaign which is built around our partnership with the IPL and this helps us leverage more eyeballs and achieve a better ROI. For example, during the TV viewership, YES BANK branding appears everytimethere is a SIX hit during the match and this is tied in with our interest rate proposition on Savings Account. We have special apps & online/ social media engagement with our existing & target customers. On the ground, we distribute YES BANK merchandise to help people connect with the Brand, and also invite select corporate and retail clients to witness the match as a YES BANK guest. The hospitality extended to some of the clients is a sort of “money can’t buy” proposition which helps us build enduring relations. Apart from the direct engagement the IPL partnership also gives us a pan India visibility of 150 million plus viewers.
Q] With each bank having a different and latest offering on digital and social, how is Yes Bank leveraging the Digital platform?
For YES BANK, digital and social engagement falls under three categories.
First is, how can the channel be used to provide better customer service toYES BANK’s existing customer base of 1.5 million customers.
Second, can Digital Platforms help YES BANK acquire a disproportionately high number of customers for new productlaunches?I am not talking incrementality here, but quantum leaps.
And third is whether it gets good PR valueie. Buzz for the YES BANK initiative.
A lot of stuff that YES BANK does right now is focussedon the first two viz. Customer Servicing and Customer Acquisition. For example, YES MONEY as a product is a domestic remittance solution, which YES BANK started and then NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) identified it as a great IMPS (Interbank Mobile Payments Service)based opportunity. We recently got communication from NPCI stating that they have crossed the 10 million transactions per month mark on this product which was popularised by us through an innovative use case.. YES MONEY is a simple product which leverages on Digital innovations and technology to allowmigrant labourers to go the nearest general store (kirana) to send money home through our network. The labourer then receives a SMS alert that the money has been transmitted.Essentially it is enabling poor migrant labourers to save their daily wages and time, and still transmit the money at one tenth the cost. The general stores are our sub-banking correspondents. YES BANK has 18-20 large banking correspondents who in turn have a chain of smaller sub-banking correspondents, which enable the transmission to happen. YES BANK has also received several awards for this product. This is pure financial innovation. Innovation doesn’t involve only 18-year-olds who use social media.It can be for migrant labourers as well.
Q] What is the media mix for Yes Bank?
Currently we are largely focussed on Print media,which account for about 60-70%. Digital media investment remains a significant area for the future and is currently at about 15-20% and increasing. The rest goes to television media which is mostly tailored around YES BANK’s events with a minimal share from plain FCT standalone campaigns on television.. Our digital spending is more geared towards NRI customers as it helps us transcend physical boundaries and reach out to a wider audience.
Q] The gamut of communication from BFSI have been under the umbrella of creating emotional connect. How is YES BANK different?
Banking services are not impulse purchase, they are need driven. Consumers open an account or take an instant loan only when the need arises and therefore consideration happens if you are present at that point of time, and have the best terms on offer. A customer can always research at eportals& comparison sites such to find out which bank offers the best option. In the last couple of years, a lot of BFSI communication has moved away from purely transactional to a more emotive and involving purchase.We have focused on the cultural tension within our society, where every individual be it the youth or the salaried employee or an entrepreneur is keen to see progress & grow, but at an individual level but also increasingly as a community and country. Hence our campaignhas focus on this power of “YES”. ie. ‘One Yes Can Change Your Life’.We have also focused on the positivity and underlying trust that the word YES conveys, through simple yet effective campaigns under “YES For You”, “SAY Yes to Growth”. There have been different adaptations ofcourse for print and digital as also product level marketing.Customer service is the major differentiating factor, where YES BANK has now strong systems & processes to ensure consistent and superior service. Secondly, our products are designed with thorough sector research and expertise from knowledge professionals, and one can see a clear difference when you compare it with other banking products.
Q] How is YES BANK’s presence across India?
We have 630 branches across the country and about 1,1150 ATMs covering all 29 states and all 7 Union Territories, across India. Our highest presence is in the DMIC (Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor) corridor which accounts for over 60% of our branches. We are planning scaling our branch networkover the next five years. While other players are urging people to move out of branches and get online, YES BANK wants to provide them all channels. We still want our customers to visit us in the branch once in a while because we don’t want the human element to disappear from banking.That has been the focus of our distribution strategy.There is only so much you can achieve by pushingmessages to a customer through an app, the best service experience happens when your Relationship Manager meets the client to provide customised banking solutions.
Q] What trends will drive the banking sector in the coming year?
Digital is going to be important. A lot of the corporate sector clients will deleverage themselves, right now as they are fairly leveragedbecause the economic activity is still recovering. Hopefully in the next 12-18 months, a lot of this will be taken care of and new incremental investments &businesses would take off. From a public sector bank perspective, which is the bulk of the banking sector, there is a need to raise capital, and the budgetary support is very less. Mr Kapoor in his capacity as the ASSOCHAM President has put a white paper on this and has shared it with the government.
About the Brand
YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector Bank, is a high quality, customer centric, service driven, private Indian Bank catering to the Future Businesses of India. Since its inception in 2004, YES BANK has fructified into a “Full Service Commercial Bank” that has steadily built Corporate and Institutional Banking, Financial Markets, Investment Banking, Corporate Finance, Branch Banking, Business and Transaction Banking, and Wealth Management business lines across the country, and is well equipped to offer a range of products and services to corporate and retail customers.YES BANK has a widespread branch network of over 630 branches across 375 cities, with 1150+ ATMs across all 29 states and & Union Territories in India.
MARKETING TIP
Business objectives and corporate strategy should drive marketing.
CMO File
Amit Shah, President & Country Head, Marketing & Corporate Communication, YES BANKis an experienced banking and consulting professional with over 12 years of experience.His responsibilities include all aspects of business strategy, planning &analytics, marketing, communication, branding, digital & social strategy, public &social policy advocacy, CSR strategy/ Responsible Banking initiatives. Shah in his current role has been instrumental in creating a strong Brand “YES”. Prior to joining YES Bank, Shah worked at TSMG (Tata Strategic Management Group), as a consultant assisting multiple Tata Group and non-Tata Group clients on their business strategy. He started his career with L&T and has extensive international experience across Europe, East Africa & Asia.He did his MBA from NITIE (National Institute of Industrial Engineering) and BE (Mechanical) from REC Surathkal (KREC/NIT – Karnataka).
FACTS
Creative Agency: Triton Communications
Media Agency: Triton Communications
Social Media Agency: Windchimes
Digital Agency:iProspectCommunicate2
PR Agency: Adfactors
Feedback: saloni.dutta@exchange4media.com
