Adgully Exclusive | Incorporating conversational rather than broadcast messaging: Kotak Mahindra Bank's Karthi Marshan

Kotak Mahindra Bank unveiled a new campaign called 'Money Ka Matlab' (What does money mean to you), aimed to develop better banking products by unleashing consumers' insights and perceptions about money. Adgully caught up with, Karthi Marshan, Executive Vice President & Head-Marketing, Kotak Mahindra Group, spoke about the new campaign and the set goals for the firm.

Speaking on the though that went into making the 'Mony ka Matlab" campaign, Marshan said, Our approach to the 25 years old campaign was essentially to use the fact that we were 25 in two different ways. One, to get disproportionate attention, because it was a unique messaging oppurtuinity that no other brand had. Secondly, use the actual age of 25, as opposed to people's thoughts that we were younger, in order to enhance our credibility quotient. Also, they started talking not only about themselves, but 'the consumer' and thus allowed something about the brand to emerge. "It delivered hockeystick like growth in key areas like awareness, credibility, trust, recall, brand recognition, et al. Apart from this, one cool thing that we got back was that people started looking at us as a youthful brand, more positively". Typically, in Banking, Finance, Securities and Insurance (BSFI), the general notion is, the older the brand, the more reliable it is, which is true. So it was interesting to be in a position where we are not too old, nor a new brand, thus we planned to hold onto the youthful brand image we gained.

Still in our 25th year, taking forward the same approach, adding an extra dimension to the campaign we have the new 'money ka matlab' campaign. "After a lot of research and brain storming,we developed the campaign revolving around 'money', the common factor in all categories that Kotak reaches out to", he said. The campaign highlights the question, 'what is the meaning of money to a 25 year old', understanding the fact that the meaning and value of money changes from generation to generation. This is not because of factors like inflation or financial services being liberated, its also the mindset and daily engagement with 'money'. World wide there is a new discipline know as 'behavioural ecnomics' - a cross section of psychology and economics which provides rich insights in this subject. "Thus we believe that Kotak, is to a large extent, an equal partner in the journey of India in the evolution and libralisation of money. Kotak has been a unique conversationalist with the consumer, in the context of the underlying meaning of money and how it is changing", he opined.

The campaign has been done on the basis of a media strategy that has worked in total favor of the firm. With high percentage of focus on the outdoor media, which is then driven to Facebook, has not only doubled the 'Facebook Fans' in the last couple of people. This mystery led to people actually visiting the specified url to know more about the brand. The campaign is also run on other mediums like newspaper, television and radio.

"We want to be the creators of conversations on changing meanings of money. and for this, we see the potential in the long term as well", said Marshan. Today, a lot of brand's engagement with their customer, is decided by customers themselves. with customers becoming the center's of conversations, with numerous platforms like Facebook and Twitter to talk about us (the brands); it is us who now need to reach out to them on these platforms, thus incorporating conversational rather than broadcast messages. Thus new platforms to engage with customers needs engagement at all levels, from setting up more number of ATM's to creating a Facebook page for customer engagement rather than a brand site are becoming the trick of the trade.

"Future trends that are seen in the product domain", he said, "woul be peer - to -. peer lending, where people engage with each other to make product choices and brand decisions, instead of advertisments for their preferences and choices. This indicates a rise mediums like Twitter and Facebook.

In the next 6 months, the focus is the brand 'Kotak' only. Our research in the past few years has indicated, that awareness, particularly at the spontaneous level, is linearly related to preference and consideration. Thus, we have been working on the awareness of Kotak as a brand. The goal of the company now being, a great brand recall value like that of other competitors in the market. Elaborating on this point ahead, Marshan said, there are 3 things happening in this direction. One, the organic growth of our network fro example, if one can not provide more branches, then we shall come up with more ATM's. Secondly, its the advertising itself, where, we in the last 12-15 months the attempt has been to do advertising without talking much about any product, but attempts to crate disruptive levels of awareness. And the third being, engaging conversations with our constituents on issues where we have a legitimate role to play in, but again not just about products, but what matters to you. Through this, we plan to become a significant and relevant brand in the space of consumer financial services. | By Ankita Tanna [ankita(at)adgully.com]