Q] Your latest campaign seeks to generate awareness about the benefits of investing early among young girls. How did you carry it forward considering the misinformation galore?
As an asset management company, it’s our fiduciary responsibility to help people make money and give them a better-designed thought framework. We help them make rational decisions rather than emotional decisions. With our Winvestor initiative in line, we were probably the first in the asset management business to talk to women. Over the years, we have seen a clear disparity in how men and women approach investing. We want to bridge this gap and encourage and motivate women to make better decisions with the right tools. One of the recent pieces of research that we did for Winvestor last year highlighted that not many women are making financial decisions independently, reflecting low confidence levels. We uncovered that while fathers introduce their sons to investing, husbands introduce their wives to investing. This is largely due to the mentality that sons will care for me when I grow old, but daughters will move out to different homes after marriage. Therefore, girls are taught to save and be conservative. On the other hand, boys are taught to take risks at an early age. That’s where the genesis of this campaign took place, with our insight being– influence the influencer.
Q] What was your marketing mix for this particular campaign?
We wanted to find the fastest way to connect with people, therefore, we decided to take the storytelling approach. This is why Digital became the primary medium for our campaigns. Additionally, we are looking at OOH, Radio, and Cinema, however, Digital permits us to connect with people in a slightly different programmatic manner. We might even take the routes of Print and Television. Our media mix is about 80 to 90% Digital, while the remainder is strategic Outdoor and Radio. We primarily used YouTube and other social media platforms to showcase our campaign while being disruptive and coming up with something non-flashy. Hence, our film is around 4 minutes long. Our goal was to plant a seed of inspiration in people’s minds. YouTube is the centrepiece of our communication, and even though we are looking at other mediums as well, because of the film’s duration, it is difficult to take it to Radio or TV.
Q] What are your strongest markets, and moving forward, what other markets are on your target list?
We want to see some 10-crore people investing in mutual funds at an industry level in the next five years. Data says that around 80% of the investors hail from the top 10 cities, including the Metros and some mini-Metros. This trend is predicted to stay for the next five years. However, digital enablement and aggregators have helped us increase our reach. So, half the effort and time are spent on the top markets, but the rest goes into talking to Bharat. We are trying to simplify communication and talk to people in their language. The number of investors outside the top 10 cities might be around 20% currently, however, it is expected to touch 35% by 2025.
Q] What are your goals and objectives for 2024?
Our goal is to manage people’s money systematically, and at the same time keep their trust. We aim to communicate with them responsibly so that they feel comfortable in terms of being able to build a better lifestyle while investing with us. The second, more important goal is to build a framework with which people can get better outcomes. We want to help people make better investment-related decisions; it’s about providing education and encouragement. That’s probably the direction of our marketing efforts for the next few years.
PROFILE
Abhik Sanyal is the Senior Vice President & Head-Consumer Marketing at DSP Mutual Fund, one of India’s leading asset management firms. Currently in his 18th year at DSP, he has extensive B2C integrated marketing experience across offline and digital, in the highly regulated world of financial services.
ABOUT THE BRAND
For more than 25 years, DSP Asset Managers have been helping investors make sound investment decisions responsibly and unemotionally, so the outcomes they earn are not by chance but by design. Today, DSP Asset Managers is a 100% independent & Indian Asset Management Company (AMC) with a wide range of active and passive funds managed across the risk-reward spectrum. It is backed by the DSP Group, an almost 160-year-old Indian financial giant.
FACTS
Digital media: DX Cubic (Dentsu X)
PR Agency: Concept PR
OOH: Posterscope OOH (earlier Milestone Brandcom)
Creative agency: In-house/ Project based partners
