Banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) is not the easiest category to advertise. The products can be complex, the terminology can be difficult to understand and the decisions often involve something deeply personal: a consumer’s money and financial security. For a long time, BFSI advertising relied on a fairly predictable formula of advertising. There was a family facing a financial concern, a person offering a solution and a reassuring message towards the end. The objective was less about entertaining the consumer and more about making the brand appear dependable. LIC’s ‘Zindagi ke saath bhi, Zindagi ke baad bhi’ became one of the most recognisable examples of this approach.
But the advertising environment has changed significantly. Today, BFSI brands are competing for attention in a crowded digital environment where consumers are constantly moving between short-form videos, creators, entertainment, commerce and news. A financial brand has only a few seconds to make someone stop scrolling, but it also has to ensure that the message in those few seconds is accurate and responsible.
This has changed the way BFSI marketers approach communication. The category has become more creative and culturally relevant. Visa, for instance, brought Shah Rukh Khan into its ‘Paisa O Paisa’ campaign, while ACKO used the familiar song ‘Bahon Mein Chale Aao’ to communicate the idea of health insurance in an entertaining manner. Mutual fund brands are using poetry, comedy and storytelling to make investment conversations easier to engage with. Gold loan brands are trying to move the category beyond the traditional perception of borrowing during a financial crisis.
When attention isn’t enough
BFSI brands’ objective now is to be noticed. But getting noticed is only the first part of the job. Unlike many consumer categories, financial services cannot afford to let the creative idea overshadow the product. A memorable campaign may generate views and conversations, but consumers eventually need to understand what they are buying, what it costs, what the risks are and whether it is appropriate for their needs. This makes trust a very different proposition in BFSI advertising. For a marketer, attention can be measured through views, clicks, searches and engagement. Trust is built over a longer period of time. It comes from how clearly a product is explained, how transparent the communication is, how easily a customer can access information and, ultimately, whether the experience matches the promise made in the advertisement.
This is particularly relevant as financial products across banks, insurers, NBFCs, fintechs and investment platforms become similar. When product differentiation becomes difficult, brands naturally look towards communication, experience and technology to create distinction.
For insurance brands, the stakes can be particularly high. The product is often being bought to protect consumers from a financial crisis that they hope never comes. As ICICI Lombard’s Sheena Kapoor puts it, “There is data to suggest that today, more than 50-60 per cent of healthcare expenses are paid out of pocket. Around 35 per cent of Indians are actually one hospitalisation away from bankruptcy because healthcare inflation has risen so sharply and treatments have become so expensive.”
Personalisation needs permission
AI is now becoming part of this conversation. Marketers are exploring AI for personalisation, customer service, content creation, fraud detection and financial assistance. Data can help brands understand what consumers need and when they may need it. Voice technology and regional-language communication can make financial information more accessible. Creators can explain complicated financial concepts in a more conversational manner. At the same time, every new technology brings another responsibility. How much personalisation does a consumer actually want? How much customer data should a brand use to make communication relevant? Can an AI-led interaction provide the same reassurance as a human conversation when the decision involves someone’s savings? And when creators talk about financial products, how clearly can consumers distinguish between education, opinion and paid communication? These questions are becoming important as consumers become more digitally experienced.
Visa’s Gaurav Ramdev sees trust as the foundation for making personalisation useful rather than intrusive. “Trust is a starting point, or actually, it is a licence to personalise. The more you trust a brand, the more that brand can use technology, including AI, for the betterment of what consumers want us to do. Personalisation should be transparent, responsible and consent-led. You don’t want it to appear intrusive. You want it to become a moment where you can further a consumer’s story or genuinely help them.”
This tells us that while personalisation can make communication more relevant, the same technology can also make consumers question how much a brand knows about them and how that information is being used. But personalisation has its limits, particularly when the decision being made is deeply personal.
Nuvama Group’s Sujay Rachh believes there are dimensions of financial decision-making that technology cannot fully capture. “A client’s decision is not necessarily influenced only by factors that an algorithm can understand. There are multiple dimensions that a model may not be able to capture fully: the family circumstances a client comes from, how they emotionally respond to market volatility, their long-term aspirations, and even how comfortable they are with uncertainty. I don’t think any model today can fully understand all of these factors and bring that understanding into the advice it gives. That is where human intervention remains really important.”
This is where the human layer becomes important in BFSI. Technology can identify patterns, personalise communication and make information easier to access, but financial decisions often carry emotional and personal considerations that cannot be reduced to data points.
Beyond being seen
Regulation is also adding to the conversation. On September 23, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India released its consultation paper, Recalibrating Economics of Insurance Distribution, proposing changes around commissions, distribution structures, market conduct, transparency and digital infrastructure. Among the proposals are clearer disclosure of commission structures, documenting customer needs and suitability, and measures against forced bundling and mis-selling.
From a marketers’ standpoint, the implications extend beyond compliance. Financial communication is becoming part of the overall customer experience. The advertisement may create interest, but the website, app, sales process and customer service have to sustain the confidence created by that communication. A brand cannot talk about transparency in its advertising and then make it difficult for a customer to understand the product. It cannot use technology to create a personalised experience while making consumers uncomfortable about how their data is being used. Similarly, a campaign can make insurance or investing appear simple, but the product information still needs to be clear.
For PayU’s Argho Bhattacharya, Head of Marketing, the challenge becomes even more important when brands communicate with Bharat. “When you’re communicating to Bharat, there are two basic pillars we have to deal with. The first is visibility. The second is giving people a reason to buy or, more importantly, a reason to believe. What do we change in their lives? How do we make their lives easier, their decisions smarter or more beneficial? That is the second part.”
This distinction is important for BFSI brands trying to expand beyond the metros. Being visible is only the starting point. The communication also has to answer a more fundamental question: why should this consumer believe that the product is relevant to them?
This is where BFSI marketing is beginning to move from simply selling a product to helping consumers understand it. Financial literacy has become an important part of that process, particularly as brands look beyond the metros. Expanding into Bharat requires more than translating an English campaign into a regional language. Consumers may have different levels of financial and digital familiarity, and communication needs to take those differences into account.
For a first-time investor, a simple explanation of an SIP may be more useful than a complex product campaign. For someone buying insurance for the first time, understanding coverage and exclusions may matter more than a celebrity endorsement. For a small merchant adopting digital payments, ease of use and confidence in the system can be as important as the technology itself. This gives BFSI marketers a role that goes beyond communication. Advertising can also become a tool for education. The challenge is to make financial information accessible without making it misleading or oversimplified. The best communication may not necessarily be the one that makes a product sound easiest. It may be the one that helps the consumer understand what they are actually choosing.
The same tension can be seen in creator-led financial content. Creators have made financial conversations more accessible and relatable, particularly for younger consumers. But financial advice also carries a higher responsibility than many other forms of branded content. As more financial conversations move to social platforms, credibility and transparency become important.
The rise of UPI, digital lending, online investing and app-based financial services has made this even more relevant. Consumers can discover and purchase financial products faster than ever before. The distance between seeing an advertisement and making a financial decision has become much shorter. That has changed the marketer’s job.
Earlier, the advertisement could create awareness and leave the rest to a branch, agent or salesperson. Today, the advertisement, search result, social post, app interface and customer service interaction can all form part of the same journey. The brand promise has to remain consistent across all of them.
This is also why the old distinction between brand marketing and performance marketing is becoming less straightforward in BFSI. A campaign can build brand familiarity while a highly targeted digital message can push a customer towards a specific action. The challenge is to ensure that the pressure to deliver conversions does not come at the cost of responsible communication.
Ultimately, BFSI marketing is caught between two very real demands.
First, it needs attention because consumers have more choices and less patience. Second, it needs trust because the consequences of a financial decision can be significant. And neither can be ignored.
The interesting question, then, is not whether BFSI brands should choose attention or trust. It is how they can use attention to create the conditions for trust. A celebrity can make a brand familiar. A creator can make a financial concept relatable. AI can make communication more relevant. Data can help brands understand consumers better. Entertainment can make an otherwise complicated category easier to engage with. But none of these can replace the fundamentals of financial communication: clarity, transparency, relevance and credibility.
Pitch BFSI Marketer Awards 2026
This is the conversation at the centre of BFSI marketing today. The Truecaller Ads Pitch BFSI Marketer Awards 2026 held in Mumbai on September 23, brought together marketers from across banking, financial services and insurance to recognise campaigns and strategies that are responding to this changing consumer and media environment.
In our cover story, we speak to the marketers behind some of these campaigns to understand how they are approaching the balance between attention and trust. Muthoot Finance’s Abhinav Iyer discusses how gold loan marketing can move beyond traditional perceptions of distress and focus on informed borrowing, accessibility and confidence. PayU’s Bhattacharya talks about the role of reliability, security and simplicity in digital payments. Visa’s Ramdev looks at how a payments brand can use culture and entertainment while retaining its core promise of trust.
ACKO’s Nitin Khanna brings the conversation to insurance penetration, financial awareness and digital-first consumers, while Franklin Templeton’s Geetanjali Sachwani discusses how investing can be made relevant without creating unrealistic expectations. At Nuvama, Rachh looks at trust as something that has to be demonstrated through behaviour and customer experience rather than simply communicated as a brand promise. ICICI Lombard’s Kapoor explores the balance between creativity, technology and compliance. Tata Asset Management’s Ashish Pawar discusses how poetry, comedy, storytelling and culturally relevant formats can make investing more accessible while keeping education at the centre. The wider set of winners also includes Aditya Birla Health Insurance’s Pooja Menon and Kotak Life’s Prasad Pimple. Their experiences point to a category that is changing not just how it advertises, but what it expects advertising to achieve. The BFSI consumer may stop for the campaign, but the real test begins after the click.
Can the brand explain the product clearly? Can it make the consumer feel informed rather than pressured? Can technology make the experience easier without removing the human element? And, can a financial brand be culturally relevant without compromising on accuracy? These questions are as important as reach, recall and engagement for a BFSI marketer because in a space where attention can bring a consumer to the door, it is trust that determines whether they choose to walk through it.
‘Digital Is the Core of Our Existence’
Nitin Khanna, Chief Marketing Officer, ACKO, on moving insurance communication beyond fear, making simplicity central to adoption and building a consistent consumer experience from discovery to claims
Q] ACKO’s recent health insurance campaigns, including the one built around ‘Baahon Mein Chale Aao,’ feel very different from traditional insurance advertising. What drove that approach?
Insurance communication has largely relied on familiar tropes of fear and fear-mongering. We have always believed in taking a more positive approach by celebrating consumers and the choices they make. In our health insurance campaign, we wanted to celebrate the small everyday compromises people make for their health, whether it is saying no to temptations or making healthier choices. The message was simple: if consumers do not want to compromise on their health, they should not have to compromise when it comes to health insurance either.
Q] Insurance penetration in India remains low. As a digital-native insurer, what needs to change?
We need to make insurance much simpler for consumers, both in communication and in the products we offer. Products should be designed around consumer needs rather than making people fit themselves into a set of plans created by insurers. The category also needs to rethink how trust is built. Traditionally, insurance companies often benefitted from borrowed trust through their parent financial institutions, branches or physical infrastructure. Today, trust needs to be earned consistently through simplicity and experience. Once consumers experience a product and see that it delivers consistently, trust is earned.
Q] Is the claim experience the biggest moment in building that trust?
A claim is certainly one of the many moments of truth, but consistency needs to exist across the entire buying cycle. It starts when a consumer researches the brand and explores options, continues through the purchase journey and extends to the assistance they receive digitally, and eventually to the post-purchase experience, including claims. The entire spectrum needs to be consistent from a brand experience perspective.
Q] Traditional insurers are also building strong digital experiences. What remains distinctive about being digital-native?
For many competitors, digital is a part of their business model. For us, it is the core of our existence. Being digitally native allows us to sell directly to consumers without intermediaries. That means there are no commissions being absorbed by intermediary layers, allowing us to pass more value back to our consumers. Some traditional players have built strong digital experiences, but being direct-to-consumer is fundamentally different from simply adding digital to an existing model.
Q] With stricter advertising rules, how do you balance attention with accurate communication?
Attention is extremely important, particularly when consumers discover brands through short-form content. We try to build the hook around a consumer insight or something relatable and organic. At the same time, we completely avoid misleading consumers or using clickbait where the truth is different from the promise.
Q] As ACKO looks beyond metros, what is the biggest challenge to adoption?
Given how low insurance penetration is, the industry needs to address affordability, distribution and financial literacy. For us, however, the immediate focus is on the top 25-30 million families across the top 10-15 cities.
Trust, With a Human Touch
Gaurav Ramdev, Head of Marketing, India & South Asia, Visa, on building trust beyond transactions, culture-first storytelling and using AI to make payments more intuitive
Q] When consumers notice the payment experience more than the brand behind it, how does Visa stay relevant and stand out?
Trust remains the starting point, but trust alone is no longer sufficient for differentiation. We need to reinforce that trust every time we communicate. Consumers have known Visa through the payment journey and the experience we have built over the years. We want that continuity to remain, so consumers know Visa before they pay. The relationship is an upward cycle. The strongest expression of trust is when a brand becomes almost invisible because you simply rely on it. Transactions are the bedrock, but we reinforce that trust through communication across travel, entertainment, dining, sports, fashion and music.
This year, campaigns such as ‘Visa Power Travels’, ‘SRK and Infinitely More’ have taken that equity into aspiration, lifestyle and experiences. We are layering trust every time we show up.
Q] What role does culture and entertainment play in making a payment brand more emotionally relevant?
Consumers care less about the technology itself and more about the outcome. They want to know whether they are protected, safe and can rely on the product. That is where Visa’s communication comes in.
Be it Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Infinite Reward’ campaign, the work with Cyrus Broacha or our micro drama on Instagram, these different storytelling formats reinforce the same product truth. Visa can be part of an e-commerce transaction, a face-to-face card payment or a tap-to-pay experience. Communication brings that trust into everyday life. We use culturally relevant formats such as films, drama and IPs to tell the same story in different ways. Consumers do not necessarily need another lesson on authentication protocols. They need reasons to feel confident that Visa has their back every time they use it.
Q] How should marketers balance convenience with privacy and consumer trust?
Trust is a license to personalise. Personalisation needs to be transparent, responsible and consent-led. You do not want it to feel intrusive. It should help further a consumer story or solve a genuine need. AI is also expanding our creative possibilities, as we use AI and machine learning in our products to make experiences simpler and better. Recently, we launched an agentic commerce platform that allows consumers to start with an intent rather than a shopping activity.
The opportunity is to move from an activity-led journey to an intent-led one. But the principle remains the same: build trust, make consumers comfortable relying on the brand and reward that trust through better payment experiences.
Q] How is Visa’s marketing role evolving from educating consumers to building digitally confident financial behaviour?
Marketing today has a broader responsibility than education. It has to contribute to building an inclusive and digitally confident consumer. We want consumers to trust digital payments and feel confident taking them further into their lives. A campaign can communicate that promise, but the product has to deliver on it. Every positive product experience builds confidence.
The next phase will combine large brand campaigns with being present at the moment of truth, when consumers are actually thinking about or making a payment. For Visa, the future is about building trust through large campaigns while also showing up when culture is happening and at the moment of payment.
Trust Is the Real Currency
Abhinav Iyer, Chief General Manager, Marketing and Strategy, Muthoot Finance Limited, shares insights on marketing gold loans, simplifying access and making trust tangible
Q] Gold is an emotional and culturally significant asset for Indian households. How does that shape Muthoot Finance’s marketing of gold loans?
Gold is indeed an emotionally and culturally significant asset. In simple words, we see ourselves as guardians of trust, helping society unlock the true value of its emotional currency. We do not deal with household jewellery. We deal with their emotional currency. Hence, trust is the bedrock of our business.
As far as marketing is concerned, all our communications are conceived and conceptualised within the framework of trust. That is one uncompromising attribute for every Muthootian. The way they deal with our customers, accept the gold, process the gold, the way they return the gold at the time of closure—every action is driven on the fundamental premise of trust that the customer has reposed in us.
Q] As digital convenience makes borrowing easier, how do you ensure speed does not come at the cost of trust and safeguards?
One great value proposition that we have been providing for quite a few years now is that over and above our widespread network of 7,500 branches, we also offer something which is called gold loan at home, wherein customers can book an appointment and our Muthoot Finance staff will visit them in their home. We’ll assess the process and secure the gold at your home itself. And once the gold is sanctioned, the amount will be credited to your account and you will get a confirmation SMS from your bank.
We also offer paperless complete Aadhaar enabled e-KYC processing in the branch to minimise documentation. We also have exciting WhatsApp journeys; you can top up your existing gold loan account by clicking on three simple steps. It’s completely digitised.
Q] How does financial literacy influence the way Muthoot Finance approaches customers, particularly in Bharat?
Financial literacy remains an important part of financial inclusion, especially because access to credit is only one side of inclusion. Informed borrowing is the other side. The greater responsibility is to ensure that they understand the cost, tenure, repayment obligations and the consequences of default. With more than 70 per cent of our branches in semi-urban and rural India, we are truly a Bharat brand. At Muthoot Finance, we also have a wide cross-section of loan tenures. Consumers can choose from bullet repayment schemes, EMI-based schemes and monthly interest payment schemes. We incentivise customers so we can help borrowers to repay timely, inculcate some financial discipline and protect their gold from being auctioned.
Q] With similar products across the category, what ultimately differentiates Muthoot Finance?
Products and offerings can be replicated, but the experience of trust is hard to replicate. Trust is not tested when we take the gold, it is actually tested when the customer comes to take it back. We take pride in their confidence that their gold is fairly valued, securely protected and returned with the same dignity with which it was entrusted to us. And our guiding philosophy, ‘Where Trust Is a Tradition,’ speaks volumes about how important trust is to us.
Selling Experience
Sheena Kapoor, Head – Marketing, Corporate Communications & CSR at ICICI Lombard, speaks on making insurance engaging without compromising on trust, using technology to deepen customer experience, and simplifying communication for a digital-first audience
Q] BFSI brands are under pressure to win attention, but insurance also demands trust. How does ICICI Lombard balance the two?
Being a regulated industry, BFSI has clear compliance guardrails, but it is a fallacy that you cannot build virality without compromising on trust. Great marketing can drive engagement, conversation and buzz while building credibility.
Insurance is unique because consumers pay a premium upfront without knowing when or how they may need the product. The real moment of truth is when an unforeseen event occurs and the insurer has to deliver on its promise. At ICICI Lombard, we have catered to over 500 million customers and settled over six crore claims across health, motor and SME insurance. That is ultimately what builds trust.
Our ‘Achha Kiya Insurance Liya’ advocacy campaign was built around this idea, using quantifiable industry data to make people understand why insurance is a necessity rather than a needless expense. Our brand philosophy, ‘Nibhaye Vaade’, is at the heart of our customer experience and communication.
Q] With insurance becoming a price-comparison category, what makes consumers choose ICICI Lombard?
Price will naturally be part of the consideration, but trust, experience and convenience also influence the decision. Our technology and customer experience are important differentiators. We were among the first insurers to move our core computing to the cloud and are using AI for customised offerings and conversational health and travel journeys. Our IL TakeCare app has over 20 million downloads and helps simplify policy information and access to services. We have also introduced ILT to Hire, our hospital-based support teams that help customers and their families navigate admission, documentation, discharge and claims during an already stressful situation.
We are also looking beyond insurance towards prevention and well-being. The app offers health scans, step-tracking, doctor consultations, mental health practitioners, dietitians and nutritionists. In motor insurance, telematics allows customers to pay based on how they drive, with safer driving rewarded through better premiums.
Q] You have used AI, gaming and Gen Z-focused communication extensively. How do you keep insurance relevant to younger audiences?
We do not believe in one-size-fits-all communication. We look at cohorts and customise both products and communication for them. Our ‘Game of Life’ campaign used gaming metaphors, avatars, energy bars and gaming mechanics to explain health insurance, and its hook step generated organic participation among Gen Z and millennials. We also used an AI-generated song to communicate our TripSecure travel insurance product through radio and Spotify. More recently, we launched Vibe, a product aimed at Gen Z, with its product identity and communication designed around the way this audience speaks and consumes content.
Q] With IRDAI placing greater emphasis on accurate and non-misleading communication, how do you retain digital appeal while maintaining transparency?
Transparency is non-negotiable for us, with zero tolerance for mis-selling across communication channels. We simplify information through RIA, our chatbot, conversational journeys and WhatsApp services. Policy documents clearly state inclusions, exclusions and claims processes, while we work towards simpler, regional language. We track customer satisfaction at board level through NPS and grievance resolution.
Business Of Trust
For Argho Bhattacharya, Head of Marketing, PayU Payments India, winning in fintech is less about being loud and more about being useful when consumers need you most
Q] BFSI marketing operates under tighter rules than most categories. How do you balance attention with accuracy and trust?
BFSI is not the business of money, but the business of trust. You cannot buy it, you have to earn it. In a highly regulated category with multiple partners involved in delivering a service, everyone is responsible for building that trust. It takes a whole village to build trust, and if one part of the chain fails, the entire ecosystem suffers. So, there is no longer a trust versus attention equation. Visibility may earn consideration, but trust comes from being given permission to participate in a consumer’s financial life. As digital payments become part of everyday routines, trust has to be built into every interaction, rather than added later through advertising.
Consumers, particularly Gen Z, want reliability, security and simplicity, both in communication and in the product experience. Brands also need to be accountable when customers need help, not just visible when things are working well.
Q] What is the core idea PayU has been communicating to differentiate itself?
Our campaigns are both outward and inward looking: what we want to communicate and what benefits the consumer. Payments work best when they are invisible. If there is no problem, consumers rarely think about payments. That invisibility means the systems, payments and support are working as they should. From a brand perspective, we highlight the breadth of PayU’s presence across authentication, payments processing, consumer credit and business credit. We also use podcasts and other formats to engage the next generation of entrepreneurs who are building businesses where payments, payment gateways and credit are critical.
A central part of our brand-building is explaining digital payments simply, locally and relevantly, not just to consumers but to merchants.
Q] How is changing consumer behaviour influencing fintech communication?
Consumers are becoming more digitally experienced and experimental, but that does not necessarily make them more trusting. They compare brands quickly, look for proof and notice inconsistencies across both products and advertising. Communication therefore cannot rely only on product features, celebrity visibility or performance marketing. Brands have to explain how products work, why they are safe and what value they create.
For payments, that could mean helping someone understand a failed transaction or a fee. Brands have to be contextual, relevant and immediate. Creative communication will continue to generate attention, but it needs to be built on clarity, consistency and responsible behaviour.
Q] What does taking fintech deeper into Bharat require?
The next phase of digital payments growth will come from Bharat, but access alone is not enough. Consumers have different levels of familiarity with digital finance, languages and concerns around fraud or privacy. Two pillars matter: visibility and a clear reason to believe. Financial literacy is embedded in both. Brands need to explain why a product is necessary, what it does and how consumers can use it. Communication must respect different starting points rather than speaking down to consumers. For Bharat’s Gen Z, education can become an important part of brand building. Brands that invest in helping consumers understand financial products can build stronger, more sustainable relationships.
Numbers Need a Narrator
Nuvama Group’s CMO Sujay Rachh explains how wealth management marketing is less about promising trust and more about proving it, one client interaction at a time
Q] Wealth management is fundamentally a trust business. When affluent customers have multiple platforms, brokers and wealth managers to choose from, what makes them believe that a brand’s advice is aligned with their interests rather than its own commercial objectives?
Trust is an outcome of how consistently a brand, organisation or relationship manager behaves with the client. Today, clients have no shortage of access to products, platforms and advisors. The difference comes from the consistency of the experience: the quality of advice, transparency in the relationship and the ability of the RM to remain dispassionate about the products or services being recommended.
Every client comes with different aspirations, risk profiles and circumstances. When an advisor understands that complexity and gives advice relevant to that individual, the client can see why that recommendation has been made. You cannot simply tell clients that they come first. To earn their trust, you have to demonstrate it consistently, at every opportunity.
Q] Even financially experienced investors can be influenced by behavioural biases. How can marketing address these without becoming preachy?
Financial sophistication does not necessarily mean emotional discipline. Even experienced investors can fall prey to fear, greed or overconfidence. These behaviours are not simply about financial literacy. Marketing has a role in helping clients recognise that these biases exist. It is not about lecturing them, but acknowledging the behaviour and encouraging more considered decisions. Communication can provide context around market conditions and help clients recognise when emotions may be influencing their choices.
Q] With more Gen Z and young investors entering the market, does wealth management need to become more educational, accessible and digital?
India is becoming richer and younger, and younger affluent audiences are digitally savvy. They are comfortable discovering, comparing and accessing financial information and expect intuitive, consumer-first experiences. We need to make advice more accessible, relevant and educational. The opportunity is to build relationships much earlier, using digital tools, personalisation and education to demystify financial complexity. Wealth management should not begin when someone becomes wealthy. It should help people make better decisions as they build wealth.
Q] How much should AI influence investment decisions before a human advisor steps in?
AI can process large amounts of data, identify patterns, simplify financial concepts and generate insights. It can also help RMs understand portfolios, opportunities and risk profiles faster. But client decisions involve factors that algorithms cannot fully understand, including family circumstances, emotional responses to volatility, long-term aspirations and comfort with uncertainty. Human intervention remains critical.
Q] What consumer insight is shaping your marketing approach today?
Trust needs to be demonstrated consistently. AI can simplify complex information, but wealth management brands must make it meaningful across campaigns, education, podcasts, PR and stakeholder communication. Ultimately, trust cannot be manufactured through communication. It comes from systems, behaviours and experiences that make clients feel they can trust the brand.
‘Mutual Funds Speak THE LANGUAGE of Culture’
Ashish Suryakant Pawar, Chief Marketing Officer, Tata Asset Management, on using poetry, comedy and storytelling to make investing more relatable
Q] Tata Mutual Fund has recently used a combination of poetry, comedy and storytelling in its campaigns. What was the idea behind using these formats, and do you see them connecting well with customers?
The real insight behind how we operate at Tata Mutual Fund is understanding what today’s consumer is doing. From a consumer perspective, either he is searching, scrolling, shopping or streaming, which is what we call our 4S approach. Today, Reels dominate consumption, featuring formats such as stand-up comedy, spoken word and other engaging content. This comes from a simple observation—people rarely remember financial jargon, but they remember stories, emotions, experiences and moods. Through ‘Mehfil-e-Fund’, we explore formats such as poetry and comedy. We also created the Friendship Day campaign ‘Dost Hi Sikhaate Hain’ and ‘Papa Kasam’, built around the insight that while fathers teach us many things, one of their most important lessons is investing.
These campaigns use real-life conversations and insights to make concepts such as trust, discipline and consistency emotionally relevant. We also bring SIP into these relatable moments rather than presenting it as a purely financial concept.
Q] The Tata name carries legacy and familiarity, but today’s consumers discover financial brands through apps, creators and social platforms. How do you convert that legacy into relevance for a younger audience without relying only on the Tata name?
We believe trust and relevance are not competing ideas. They are most powerful when they work together. Today’s investors discover and discuss financial products through creators, community apps and social platforms, and expect brands to earn relevance. Our approach is to educate, engage and empower. We want to be relevant across the entire value chain, from when a person is considering a product and researching it to finally buying it.
We explain investing in simple language, use engaging content to drive brand discovery, and ensure a smooth onboarding process. By doing this, alongside trust, we earn relevance amongst today’s consumers.
Q] What responsibility does an asset manager have to correct behavioural biases once an investor is already inside the funnel?
When a consumer buys a particular mutual fund, he may do so because it has been suggested by a friend or family member. He may have gone to a distributor who explained the fund to him, or to a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), understood his risk profile and then bought the fund based on that. There are different types of customers who buy.
Our aim is to ensure that once a person buys a product, we explain to them what the fund is all about. We do this through an initiative called Quarterly Compass, where every three months, a particular fund video goes out to our customers. It talks about what the fund comprises, whether there are any changes in the fund, its risk appetite and who should be looking to invest in it. Even if a consumer has bought a particular fund, we try to educate them about the specific risks, details of the fund and what does it invest in. All these things are passed on to them in a transparent manner.
Beyond the Returns Chart
Geetanjali Sachwani, Vice President and Head of Marketing, Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India) Pvt. Ltd., on building trust through consistency, responsible personalisation and taking financial conversations beyond metros
Q] Mutual fund marketing operates under a different trust equation from banking or payments because returns are uncertain. How do you create attention without creating unrealistic expectations?
When I look back at some of the campaigns we have created at Franklin Templeton, what stands out is our effort to make investing relevant to people’s lives rather than simply talk about products. ‘Invest for Progress’ and ‘Marathon of Life’ approached investing through a human lens of aspirations, progress, perseverance and different life stages. The aim was to make the subject engaging without suggesting that investing is a shortcut to wealth or that markets move predictably. The trick is to make the story compelling while keeping the promise honest. We can create aspirations around financial progress, but we cannot manufacture certainty around investment outcomes.
After more than a decade in the industry, I believe the strongest brand promise in mutual funds is not a promise of returns, but the confidence that we will remain a trusted partner through the investment journey and whatever lies ahead.
Q] If trust is built through consistency rather than campaigns, what should marketing teams measure beyond leads, app downloads and AUM-linked acquisition?
I think of brand-building like building a relationship. One campaign may introduce you to someone, but it takes repeated interactions and consistent experiences for that person to remember you, trust you and eventually recommend you.
Beyond leads and conversions, I would look at brand recall, consideration, trust, advocacy, engagement quality and the effectiveness of investor-education initiatives. I would also pay attention to whether our communication is creating conversations that continue beyond the campaign itself. Top-of-the-mind recall is built by showing up consistently, with something meaningful to say. In financial services, that consistency eventually turns a brand into a trusted name.
Q] How far should an asset manager go with personalisation before it starts influencing investors based on assumptions they may not fully understand?
Technology helps tailor communication to language, financial familiarity, interests and information needs. That matters in a complex category like mutual funds. But digital behaviour does not reveal everything about financial needs or risk appetite. Technology should make information more accessible and relevant, not make decisions for investors.
Q] As India’s next MF investors come from Bharat, is the bigger challenge reach or creating financial content they can act on?
Our ‘Change The Soch Drive’ showed us that interest in financial security is not limited to metros. We met fisherwomen, farmers, factory workers, students and teachers, and saw that the barriers were often unfamiliarity or lack of trusted information. Financial inclusion is not just about taking information to people. It is about understanding their context, speaking in a familiar language and creating space for questions.
Bharat doesn’t lack aspiration. Our role as marketers is to make financial participation simple, relatable and accessible enough to turn that aspiration into confidence and action.
