It’s that time of the year when brand Standard Chartered Bank is on everyone’s minds, thanks to its association with the Mumbai Marathon that is making every runner in the city breathless. As the country retweets #RunForAReason, we catch up with Lakshmi Goyal, Head of Brand & Marketing, Standard Chartered Bank, India who discusses one of the biggest brand partnerships of the decade and why the company has chosen to sponsor the Mumbai Marathon for 13 years
By NEETA NAIR
Q] How has the Standard Chartered Bank Marathon helped build brand Stanchart in India?
Standard Chartered has been associated with the Mumbai Marathon for the last 13 years, and this particular sponsorship has got a great fit with our brand promise ‘Here for Good’. So, apart from actually being able to reach out to our two million customer base, it also helps us build the brand promise further through the charity contribution. Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon is the largest charity platform in India, so we are very privileged to be able to contribute to the community. At the same time, we are contributing to building this movement of running, in which a large part of our emerging affluent base is interested.
Q] What have been some of the major marketing initiatives undertaken around the Mumbai Marathon this year?
This year’s marathon has been a very exciting digital experience and I think the highlight is the #RunForAReason video which has already got over 2,00,000 views within three days of its launch. Following that video, people went on to feed in their individual reasons to run, on Twitter. The other interesting initiative is the virtual marathon, being done in India for the very first time. It is a 360-degree immersive feel which we created with a technology called ‘Oculus Rift’. We were aware that our marathon can accommodate only about 40,000 odd people. But there are many more who apply. So we created this virtual marathon as a property. One of the demonstrations happened at the Kherwadi Girls School, where the girls got on to the treadmill wearing this Oculus Rift and they were able to experience the 360-degree virtual run. We are really proud of it because it helps expand the footprint of the marathon. The other big thing is called ‘Marathon of Delights’ where we have built a host of associations amongst willing partners - around 20 partner brands - who are giving very special discounts on health and fitness-related packages for our clients. It further helps to build the association of health and fitness and ‘Here for Good’ promise of Standard Chartered.
Q] What is the fundamental principle of your marketing strategy?
Standard Chartered India is very interested in the affluent and the emerging affluent segment and we want to reach out to them in the most efficient way. This segment is also very digitally savvy, so the digital medium becomes very important. The avenues that we look to tap are large sponsorships such as the Liverpool Football Club and the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon. And frankly, we prefer to do directive customer communication and resort to mass media only when we really have something as broad-based as, let’s say, cars to talk about.
Q] Does the digital medium utilize a major chunk of your marketing spends?
If you look at the profile of our customer base, we have got 68% penetration of e-mails with our customer base, so very clearly we have digitally-savvy customers. We also invest a lot into our digital banking in terms of the mobile banking application.
Naturally, our marketing efforts are also going into digital, so a bulk of our spends, say over 50% goes into digital.
Q] Besides engagement, how do you use the digital platform for acquisition and servicing of customers?
Interestingly, we have a 3,00,000+ fan base on our Facebook page that forms a very key medium for communicating with our customers. It’s also an interactive page, because we are able to hear from them as well. We have got a dedicated team which engages with the users digitally to attend to any queries. Secondly, most of our call centres are virtual. So, we really do not rely on our branch network for the acquisition and servicing role.
Q] Does your brand communication change when you are targeting consumers in Tier II and Tier III markets?
That’s a very good question. Standard Chartered Bank has 100 branches that are spread across more than 40 cities. However, we are largely targeted at the emerging affluent and affluent segment because that is where we are able to provide the best service and deliver value in terms of our wealth management proposition, as well as high-end offerings. So our focus is largely on the large towns at present.
Q] What are some of the interesting BTL activities, sales promotions that you have engineered to increase consumer engagement?
We have a wonderful roster of corporate clients with whom we have employee banking relationships. We conduct many activities like Yoga Day for them. In fact, the 360-degree immersive experience that I spoke about is also going to be there at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon Expo. It is available to our customers. We advertise it quite prominently to ensure more people are experiencing it. Apart from the regular engagement events, we also do a lot of knowledge-based seminars because at the end of the day, that’s the strength we bring to the wealth management space.
Q] How have you built on your global brand positioning ‘Here for Good’ in India? Do you maintain the same tonality in India?
One of the key ways in which we communicate is, of course, through the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon and the various associations we do on the fitness and health platform. There can be no better representation of ‘Here for Good’ than to actually contribute to people’s health and fitness at an individual level. At the community level, again the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon is the largest charity platform in India and through that, we are able to contribute to more than $16 million worth of charity related accruals. It’s something that we are doing in our small way to stay true to the brand promise.
Q] In 2013, StanChart had come out with its first localized pan India campaign. Are you looking at any such campaigns in the near future?
There are very prominent campaigns on the cards on priority banking, which is our premium and a flagship segment proposition on the retail front. On the ATL front, we are more biased towards media that we can contain to the markets that are relevant to us. So, you would see a significant amount of Outdoor being used in conjunction with digital. Digital is the focus, so on our YouTube page, you will see a fantastic film which has been created specifically for Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon called #RunForAReason. Again, our Facebook page also enjoys a huge number of views. I think that form of communication is more relevant to us than just releasing ads.
Q] The Premier League is very popular in India and StanChart has had a long association with Liverpool. How do you look to leverage this association and promote this amongst football enthusiasts in India?
We are really privileged to be associated with the Liverpool Football Club. For our customers, there are three kinds of activities that we hope to carry out. The first is facilitating engagement with the old players of Liverpool - we got Steven Gerrard last year and plan to get another veteran this year. The other type of activity is clinics, essentially for the children of our clients who are interested in getting them started early. The third activity is called ‘Road to Anfield’ which is a kind of corporate challenge where teams are formed to compete with one another. The winning team gets to go all the way to play at Liverpool.
Q] Can you recount any consumer insight that you picked up while on a field trip or otherwise, while marketing brand Standard Chartered?
After the unfortunate floods at Chennai, we received a post on Facebook. It said, “I used my Standard Chartered Credit Card during the crisis, it worked. Thank you very much, Standard Chartered, for helping us. With this, I managed to help four of my other mates.” It was heartwarming, because at the end of the day, we are interested in more than just facilitating transactions.
ABOUT THE BRAND
Standard Chartered Bank is one of the largest international banks operating in India with 100 branches in 43 cities, a combined customer base of around two million retail and 2,500 corporate and institutional relationships. Key client segments include Corporate & Institutional Banking, Commercial & Private Banking as well as Retail Banking.
FACTS
CREATIVE AGENCY: TBWA Anthem (TBWA India)
MEDIA AGENCY: Omnicom Media Group
SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCY: Interface Business Solutions
OOH AGENCY: Interspace Communications
CMO FILE
Lakshmi Goyal is the Head of Brand & Marketing, Standard Chartered in India. In addition to overseeing brand and marketing initiatives, she is tasked with developing an integrated brand strategy across the Standard Chartered India franchise. She has spearheaded the drive towards optimizing the Bank’s brand recognition across digital and mobile channels.
MARKETING TIP
Stay focused, there is no point in communicating to more people than you need to. It wastes their time.
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