Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer – Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group talks about the need to make customers understand the company’s products, de-mystifying financial services and the latest ad in the Jaanoge Tabhi Toh Maanoge campaign
BY SALONI DUTTA
Q] What is intrinsic to marketing at Aditya Birla Financial Services Group?
We are unique in our identity and there is no benchmark in the Indian context. Aditya Birla Financial Services Group (ABFSG) is a combination of 10 lines of business which can collectively meet all the financial needs of our target customer. Leading brands from across the world are present in India but penetration is low. Mutual funds have about 5% penetration, life insurance about 15%, equity is 2%, and banking is about 40%. This is possibly because the customer speaks the language of money and we speak the language of financial services. Our philosophy and vision started with this understanding.
My role is to make sure that each of our individual businesses are relevant to their target audience, and collectively we are relevant to mass India. Our job is to create an umbrella brand, a brand which represents all shades. Therefore, we try to keep our communication simple, relevant and differentiated. Hence, we created ‘Jaanoge Tabhi Toh Maanoge’, an empowerment campaign, not an educational one. The difference between education and empowerment is like ‘teach a person how to eat fish and they will eat for a day, teach him fishing and he can eat his entire life’. So in the scenario, where we are talking about a father, son and tuitions and education, the audience is listening, then when the communication says mutual funds are similar, suddenly you have de-mystified mutual funds. We are a brand that wants to address the felt and unfelt needs of our customer, and we want to build a bond of trust with him so that we can address all his needs through his lifetime. Our differentiation is that we want to be a role model. The industry has gone by category; we want to go by consumer.
Q] What is ABFSG’s strategy to connect to different target groups?
Broadly our target audience is either retail or corporate, and the brand we are creating is from a retail perspective. Research has shown that mass India has grown to become a confident, ambitious and global India. The common factor across all our retail audience is that when it comes to money matters, we are relatively financial simpletons. Most people find themselves keeping their hard-earned money in a bank where it is not working hard for them. We have focused communications and campaigns for people who are already in the market. We look at segmented markets; if we are talking to someone who already wants a mutual fund, I will not give him information about my full spectrum of offerings. If you don’t know where to start, a platform like ‘Jaanoge Tabhi Toh Maanoge’ informs you about these categories.
Q] While planning the communication for a marketing plan, what are the essentials of your brief to the creative agency?
For our 10 lines of business to look like one, act like one and feel like one is very tough. A single brief to all our agencies is that we will not advertise and we want slice of life, credibility. Don’t preach and be simple, but be relevant. Catch my heart; you will automatically grab my mind too. Brands use celebrities who are always smiling and look undefeatable for endorsements. We used Yuvraj Singh in a totally different way. We showed him as a person who is real, vulnerable, has failed, and has fears. We make sure we have the same agency for all our companies that need advertising and similar for media, outdoor and PR. It helps the brand look like one, speak like one and act like one. The competition wants to look different, we want to look similar.
Q] How do you choose media vehicles for different sets of communication from the brand? Which medium utilizes a major chunk of your ad spends?
We start with looking at the day in the life of a customer. We spend money on mass media and a lot of money, time and effort in on-ground activations. We follow our ‘Fuljari’ strategy which is we keep doing activation sparks in the market throughout the year. For example, for life insurance, we looked at railway crossings and people crossing via tracks instead of taking the bridge. We made actual coffins in gaps in walls near stations so people had to walk through a coffin to enter the station area and go to the tracks, reminding them of the danger. We realized that we have to keep provocating throughout their lives, it is not a one-time message and mass media can only do so much. Depending on our product, category or solutions, the mix may slightly change, but the starting point is the customer. Mass media is effective for us because our message is relevant to 1.2 billion Indians. Digital is also relevant because it is cost effective throughout the year. With ‘Jaanoge Tabhi Toh Maanoge’, we did mass media but through that we prompted consumers towards janotomano.com, where we vet their appetite and give them the larger information.
Talking about spends, we get the power of one by combining the marketing budget for all companies, and make sure that we get a bigger bang for the buck. We do not look at cutting budgets if the market is not performing well. As far as our budgets are concerned, we try to see that they give us consolidated benefits. We have made sure that our budgets are treated as investments and therefore we don’t look at immediate returns.
Q] What are the challenges that the financial services industry faces today?
Communication. I take this heavy load of under-penetration on the shoulders of marketing. If the need is there and the product is there, why are people not buying it? It is because they do not understand it. And they will understand it through communication. It is a question of communicating the product and its benefits, then communicating ‘why me’ as a brand. All of that is a challenge of communication.
Q] Do you think there is a need for change in policy matters as far as the financial services sector is concerned?
At this stage, as a category what we need to do is give consumers simplicity in product, distribution and communication. For simplicity, regulation is not there. When you want to go to niche products and audience, you might want special policies and approvals, but today I don’t think there is any need for that.
In a brand context, we have a category which is relevant to all, with leading global players present in the market today, but low penetration. On the other hand, as a manufacturer, this is a product which can be copied. Its features can be copied, pricing and performance can be matched. If we launch a product today, by law it can be copied within 21 days. Where we must invest and focus on is our brand.
We can blame regulation for non-penetration if we want to, but I don’t think regulation has any role in restricting us or our opportunities, it only enables or helps us. What does policy or regulation say, it says don’t cheat the customer, be honest to them. For us, we don’t see policy as a restriction; we see it as an enabler.
About the Brand
Aditya Birla Financial Services Group is an umbrella brand for all the financial service businesses of the Aditya Birla Group, with a significant presence across life insurance, asset management, non-banking financial companies, infrastructure project & structured finance, private equity, broking, wealth management & distribution, general insurance broking & risk management services, housing finance and online money management. Across their 10 lines of business, they enjoy the trust of over 5.5 million customers, manage assets of $ 20.4 billion and have a talent pool of over 15,000 employees. They are present across more than 500 cities in India, through 1,500 branches and over 1,30,000 channel partners.
Facts
Creative Agency: Taproot India
Media Agency: Mindshare
OOH: DDB Mudra Max
Customer Communication: M&C Saatchi
PR: Ketchum Sampark
Digital Agency: Grey Digital
Marketing Tip
Keep it simple, stupid – David Ogilvy
CMO File
Ajay Kakar comes with a unique agency-cum-client perspective. He has worked at the agency end for over 14 years, at Ogilvy & Mather, across key disciplines of Direct Marketing, Advertising and PR. Today, he leads marketing across the Aditya Birla Financial Services Group. His professional associations have included Chairman, Effie Committee, The Advertising Club, India; President, Public Relations Consultants Association of India (PRCAI); VP, Managing Committee of The Advertising Club, India; Member, Awards Governing Council, Goafest, India
