Recently SEBI has come out with a notification asking AMCs to rationalise the number of mutual fund schemes they have under limited heads.
At Motilal Oswal AMC, we have a focused approach to investing. As has been highlighted in my previous post on the 'THINK EQUITY THINK MOTILAL OSWAL' campaign. (Read about it Here)
The recently ruling provided us with a topical opportunity to re-iterate our focused approach.
After all, we only have 5 high quality, concentrated mutual funds to choose from.
Based on the premise that sometimes too much choice can be confusing and intimidating; the campaign aims to highlight why when it comes to investing; 'Less Is More'
The ‘Fearless Girl’ statue (in
front of the Wall Street Charging Bull ) promoting gender diversity is probably one of the most
impactful ideas this year. A symbol of feminist strength and leadership; Fearless Girl was
commissioned by investment firm State Street Global Advisors(SSGA) as an advertisement to
promote the first year of its Gender Diverse Index ETF Fund which
comprises gender-diverse companies that have a higher percentage of women among
their senior leadership. The plaque below the statue states, "Know the
power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference," with
"SHE" being both a descriptive pronoun and the fund's NASDAQticker symbol. The idea of a Fearless Girl standing
up to a much larger statue of the famous Wall Street Bull meant to send a
message about workplace gender diversity and encourage companies to recruit
more women to their boards.
While the
idea hits home hard and has created worldwide awareness for the cause and the
product being advertised, what it also does at some level is to paint the charging
bull as an obstacle . Both State Street and the
artist who created the sculpture say that the installation is non-confrontational.
Infact State Street claims it has been placed there to be a partner to the
bull, to represent the power of women.
But will visitors decode it that way?
When
commissioned, the idea of the charging bull itself was to project optimism and strength
amid adversity. After all the phrase ‘bullish’ is an adjective for hope and
buoyancy. The time preceding the sculpture’s creation in the late 80’s was
turbulent for the stock markets and included the ‘Black Monday’ crash of 1987. It
was planted under cover of night, guerrilla-style, in front of the stock
exchange and ever since has stood as a symbol of energy and resilience.
However; with
the financial crisis of 2008, the image of Wall Street has taken a bit of a beating.
While for many the bull continues to be
a positive symbol ; as a tangible representation of the stock markets, it has
also had to bear the brunt of confrontationist inequality movements like Occupy
Wall Street (see poster) .
By being
placed right in front of it, has the Fearless Girl in effect repositioned the
Charging Bull as an adversary to be overcome rather than as a symbol of
optimism?
I hope not.
Disclaimer : Views are personal
and an observation on communication decoding. They are not meant to question either
the impact of the ‘Fearless Girl’ campaign or the cause of Gender Diversity
Published in Economic Times- BRAND EQUITY on 2nd August 2017
Every advisor or distributor espouse the concept of Goal Based Investing. That's because Goal Based Investing (GBI) not only encourages investing discipline, it also makes customer invest for the long term to achieve a goal.
Mutual Funds are one of the best ways to achieve long term goals. That's because mutual funds ; and especially good equity mutual funds, provide benchmark beating returns.
Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd is a respected equity broker who has recently entered into distribution of mutual funds. We had hence created a standard GBI platform.
However, a lot of communication lime that below already existed on GBI
To be relevant we needed a fresh perspective Paradigm Shift 1 : The target audience
We are competing not just with IFAs and wealth distributors; but also with the distribution arms of large and small banks. These brands have a large cache of trust among investors; but they also were generalists ie selling all products to every kind of customer. Given our focused approach to Marketing, we decided to be focused in our Marketing Target Audience as well. While other distributors sold to all kinds of investors; big and small, first timers and seasoned; we decided to only focus on people who were already investing in mutual funds, especially equity mutual funds. That's because being an equity investing expert with over 30 years of equity experience, we could do a better job of creating effective investing advice to those investing in equity. Whats more there would be more brand familiarity for us among these investors, given our equity heritage. Paradigm Shift 2: The product
At Motilal Oswal, we believe in having a process for investing. It is this process that helps differentiate us from other investing brands. We have tried to use a process in our approach to goal based investing as well. Rather than just claim we will help achieve an investing goal, we have broken it up into three components
1.How Much to Invest(Amount)
2.How Long to Invest(Time)
3.What to Invest in (Fund Mix
recommendation)
In each of these components we have created a differentiator
1.Dynamic Investment Calculator: Our Dynamic Investment Calculator looks at your
earnings and savings along with your risk profile and overall investing goal to
tell you how much you need to invest to achieve your goals
2.Compounding Calculator : Our Target Investment Plan has a Compounding Calculator
that tells you how long you need to invest ( in addition to investment and fund
recommendation) to help you achieve your goals
3.Focused Investing
Recommendations: In our
Target Investing Plan recommendation, we use our acclaimed research to make a
focused recommendation on 1)number
of funds & 2)fund selection This focused investing approach is based on a
clear portfolio goal, superior fund selection, rational allocation of
investments across funds and active monitoring to give your portfolio the edge
for asymmetric payoffs
The complete MO GBI product is configured on this process
Paradigm Shift 3 : The Communication
To short hand the GBI Process we chanced upon an investing insight that is relevant to our brand. Motilal Oswal as a brand has historically been acknowledged as a trustworthy broker. What you typically expect from a broker are solid TIPs. We have hence used this expectation in the context of GBI to reframe it as a Target Investment Plan
The whole campaign aims to create buzz around the concept of #TheonlyTIP you need for investing
The communication proposition is based on the premise that very day we receive TIPs from various people. Most of these tips are useless (after all free fund mein advise toh sab dete hain!). Atleast there is one TIP (Target Investment Plan) that is useful because it helps realise goals
Here are some of the teasers
We then moved onto teasers using our brand ambassador - The Man From Motilal Oswal
In the launch we used an internet celebrity (Malika Dua) to highlight the useless tips people receive and present the benefits of Motilal Oswal TIP through the Brand Ambassador
Follow Up Communication focussed on individual features and how they contributed to the process of Goal Based Investing
The campaign has also been taken forward in Ambient Media
Primary
Hashtags “#TheOnlyTIP” on
24th July 2017 was one of the most talked
about topic on twitter.
Hashtag
trended on twitter nationally,
In Mumbai & Chennai for
more than 2 hours.Total
number of users
engaged during all activities were 1030+. Total
number of Mentions: 7812+. Total
number of impression generated: 78.2 Million
Systematic Investment Plan or SIP is an effective way to create wealth over the long term. While traditional SIPs talk about the benefits of regularly putting in small amounts, we have created a product based on a different insight.
We all have special anniversaries in our lives which are special. It could be our own birthday or the birthday of our child, our wedding anniversary or even a milestone. Typically we celebrate these special days every year - by spending money. The annual SIP aims to get investors to use their special yearly events to invest money.
Money that will help us enjoy life over the long term.
We have hence created a special annual SIP product based on this insight.
Here's the communication
Given the latest regulator rulings on intermediary compensation, many people are envisaging the move to direct investing or an advisory fee based model.
While these models will continue to evolve, there would continue to be a role for intermediaries in investing for two reasons
Unlike buying products online where you can compare one tangible versus another, investing requires an estimation of what the future of the product would be like. This requires expertise.
Given sub 5% penetration levels of equity and mutual funds in India, there is a large role of education and expertise needed by investors; especially new to investing/novice investors and those who do not have much time or bandwidth to look after their investments
Investors today exist in different psyches:
Delegator- one who wants to delegate all his
investing decisions to an expert. Typically a mutual fund, PMS investor
Validator- one who will take his own decisions
but needs advice from an expert to validate. Typically a long term stock
market/mutual fund investor
Self Directed - one who does his own research,
takes his own decisions and trades; typically in short term stock market trades
There is a role that an intermediary would play ;atleast for the first two audiences:
Choice – An intermediary helps you choose from a plethora
of investing options ( there are thousands of stocks and mutual funds to choose
from) based on your profile and investing goal
Conviction- He has the knowledge and
experience . hence when he suggests an investing idea, he can do so with
conviction. This conviction is what many times helps you take the decision.
Counselling- during times of market
volatility, a financial advisor can counsel you to be disciplined about
investing (and not give into the emotions of greed and fear)
Consolidation- all your various
investments ( various mutual funds, stocks, insurance etc) can be consolidated
and tracked in one place by the intermediary who can provide you timely alerts
for course correction etc
Here's a 5 minute video we have made on role of
intermediary in investing
Equity markets have delivered steller returns in the past 6
months. If you see the inflows into equity mutual funds, direct equity
investing as well as IPOs, there is currently a lot of interest among investors
for equity as an asset class. However given low penetration, there is low
understanding around equity investing.
Today, Mass Affluent investors are looking
for avenues to create wealth. While they may have invested in various asset
classes ( fixed deposits, gold, real estate, fixed income funds), they realise
that equity is probably the best asset class to create wealth over the long
term. They want to take advantage of the current favourable investing
climate and invest in equity- either through equity mutual funds or through
direct stock investing. However, they also realise that equity investing
requires special expertise. It is complex, requires regular monitoring ,
knowledge to pick winners and the discipline to stick with them. Lack of these
qualities is what makes equity investing risky. To take advantage of the
investing opportunity and mitigate its risks, they are looking at equity investing
experts
In a category with low penetration, it is awareness and
consideration that builds brand trial. To create consideration , Motilal Oswal has created a campaign positioning itself as the equity investing expert.
Drive by Motilal
Oswal tower at night and it will be lit green or red depending on how the stock
markets have performed that day. Instead of ‘Up-Down’ buttons our
elevators have visuals of Bulls and Bears. We have one of the largest equity
research departments in the industry and a unique equity investing
process(QGLP) . All the money of the company and promoters is invested only in
equity . As an investment house we
think, breathe and live equity .
Needless to say; we are an ‘equity
focused’ investing house !
To celebrate this focus on equity , we have rolled out our latest brand campaign positioning MOFSL as an equity investing expert.
The campaign idea is simple
– if you are thinking about investing in equity , think about Motilal Oswal.
Because we have been focusing on only equity for 30 years and have mastered it
.
The idea of the campaign is to; well; focus on this
focus! And hence present Motilal Oswal as the equity expert you should think of
if you are thinking about investing in equity.
Here is the launch TV film & Print. Media is Business and General news channels and Business Newspapers
UPDATE ( 20th November 2017) : Buoyed by the success of the launch TVC, we have released a follow up TVC which is on air since November 20th 2017. Here is a link to the same.
Campaign also taken forward in various digital media and collaterals
Social Media Contextual Posts
Digital Banners
Ambient Media & Collaterals
We have also taken forward our equity expertise proposition and the 'Think Motilal Oswal' Idea in the form of an onground activation in association with IIM Ahmedabad. The activation idea promotes our QGLP investing approach through India's first stock-picking contest for B-Schools.
The advertising has achieved almost 4 million views on youtube , over 2 lac views on facebook and over 2 lac views on twitter as well. This does not include the viral views generated through sharing of video on individuals social media pages. Infact according to a youtube report, the ad is one of the best performing in BFSI space with a cost per view of 1/3rd the category average cost Best BFSI campaign at the INDIAAA Awards 2017 ( http://indiaa-awards.org/ )
The Indian chapter of the International Advertising Association comes out with the IndIAA(India Chapter of the International Advertising Association) awards that recognise real advertising campaigns that have worked hard in the market place. An esteemed jury consisting of Gopal Vittal (Bharti Airtel), Shikha Sharma (Axis Bank), Suresh Narayanan (Nestle), Nitish Kapoor (Reckitt Benckiser), Sunil Duggal (Dabur) and Sunil Kataria (Godrej) selected the ''Think Equity. Think Motilal Oswal' campaign as the best in the BFSI category for 2017 CNBCTV18-India Business Leaders Award : Brand of the Year
This blog is about my point of view on things concerning branding and advertising. And also various marketing and advertising campaigns I have been involved with. It also showcases the strategy behind various marketing initiatives and some of the creatives done by various sources to support these initiatives; be it agencies or the marketing Team. While some of the creatives would have been done by various agencies ( reach out to me to know who did what) ; the views expressed are fully my own. You may choose to agree or disagree. Either ways let me know on thesweetspotindia@gmail.com . Cheers.
