Indian mother leads as change-maker in Axis Bank home loans campaign

Axis Bank, the country’s third largest private sector bank, has launched a new home loan campaign with a unique product differentiator – ‘Home Loans with 12 EMIs Off’. Typically, the male in the household takes a decision to buy a home as well as choosing the home loan provider. However, the film, created by Lowe Lintas, has put the woman in the centre of the campaign as key influencer and decision maker. Through this campaign, Lowe Lintas has portrayed an Indian mother as the ‘change-maker’, by putting her in the ‘driver’s seat’. 

Speaking on the launch of the campaign, Asha Kharga, CMO, Axis Bank, said, “The dominant language in the home loans category is around interest rates and percentages. Hence, the new campaign aims to differentiate Axis with a simple proposition of ‘12 EMIs off’. Consumer work revealed that home buying discussions usually start during important life events like marriage. With that context, the insight that we honed on was that typical Indian moms don’t want to let go of their sons. If the ad encourages mothers to introspect and have authentic, honest conversations, it would have truly struck a chord and made Axis relevant and memorable.” 

The campaign, conceptualised by Lowe Lintas Mumbai and directed by Gauri Shinde, showcases veteran actress Revathi and Bollywood actor Vikrant Massey in conversation with each other while shopping for his wedding. Revathi as the mother brings up the important aspect of having one’s own living space post getting married. 

Arun Iyer, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, Lowe Lintas, said, “The brief was to differentiate ourselves within the category – wherein the conversations are always about interests and percentages. The product had a clear differentiator and the communication required to reflect that. Therefore, we decided that the communication should challenge conventional thinking just like the product proposition does. We chose to depict a warm and cheerful conversation between a mother and son, where the change maker is the mother, which is not what is expected in our culture. We deliberately chose Revathi, adorned her as conventional as expected, but she’s ingrained with progressive thinking. She advises her son who is about to get married to move into a home of his own. This helped us entrench the central idea, which is ‘Ghar ki kushi bani rahe, EMI’s nahi’.” 

Campaign Credits: 

Client: Axis Bank
Client Team: Asha Kharga, Ananya Shukla, Amit Vishwakarma

Agency: Lowe Lintas (Mumbai)
Creative: Arun Iyer, Amar Singh, Akash Das, Prathamesh Gharat, Joshua Thomas, Tejas Dangre, Katya Mohan, Adelle Rodrigues, Nayan Sarmah
Account Management: Shantanu Sapre, Danny Nathani, Jay Ladhani, Neal Kurian
Planning: Saji Abraham, Abhijith Shetty, Abhishek Joshi