DSP Mutual Fund to spend 50% of total marketing budget on content, says Abhik Sanyal

It seems like marketers have understood the importance of storytelling in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) category. What was earlier perceived as boring and rational has now become more emotion-provoking. Whether it is a challenger brand or a category leader, with different end objectives and agendas, all seem to accept and create content that is more than information and at the same time entertaining.

The brand which has earlier released content pieces like 'Dramayana' and ‘Dancing Uncle’, has recently forayed into web series content format with 'Cubicles' in association with TVF Originals.

In an exclusive interview with BuzzInContent.com, Abhik Sanyal, Vice-President and Head, Consumer Marketing of DSP Investment Managers, talks about the brand's approach towards content marketing.

Sanyal said in 2019, 25%-30% of the brand's efforts and money went towards creating content. He anticipated this number to become half of the entire budget very soon, and that is the focus for 2020.

As content marketing and branded content space evolves, he said influencer-led marketing would get more mature in terms of associations and promotions. An influencer has to be the thought leader of a category, he said.

Sanyal also discussed the brand's plan to explore vernacular content.

Excerpts:

How focused is the brand on content marketing?

Content has become very important to us. Finance, as a category, has always been considered very serious. However, finance is just another category; it's just another product in the minds of an investor. So if other product categories give the audience a feeling of happiness or entertain them, why do they have to perceive finance as serious? Given where the user is shifting and consuming content, our focus is also moving towards that. We've got less than 2% of the entire country that invests in mutual funds. So if we were to create content on mutual funds and investment, we would have a very limited audience, probably a bottom of the funnel audience that has already decided on the idea of investing in mutual funds.

On the other hand, in the mid or top funnel, the objective is to make people aware of the category. We do top-funnel activities where we just try to attract people's attention in a very subtle manner. At the same time, at the bottom of the funnel, we give them something which is much targeted.

What are your major content Initiatives?

In 2015, we launched our https://learn.dspim.com/ website, which has content on mutual funds in video and textual formats. We also have our YouTube channel since 2011, wherein we've answer questions on mutual funds. We produce content meant to create business conversions, increase awareness of either the brand or the category. We create short-form content for products. We create content for social media, but each of them has a different objective. Therefore, the amount of focus, efforts and the budget that goes behind it are kind of different, depending on the volume and the kind of value we try to extract.

We have our investor initiative through which we create a lot of content that goes up on our Instagram page. The whole objective is to empower women with financial knowledge so that they feel enabled and empowered to take control of their lives in the future.

Budget wise, this year 25%-30% of our efforts and our money went towards creating content in some way or the other. I anticipate that number is only going to grow, as time evolves, becoming half of the entire budget very soon. So that's the kind of focus we want to bring into creating content in 2020.

What is objective does the brand want to fulfil through the Cubicle web series? Is this inspired by AMFI's web series 'Yeh Meri Family' and 'Aam Aadmi Family' on TVF?

Any web series did not inspire it. The objective was not to get business or to sell a product or to even talk about the brand. As this is an investor education initiative, we were cautious as we didn't oversell the brand or products. We only wanted to talk about the fundamental principles of investing, something we genuinely believe. And, therefore, the objective was to have an increased number of conversations around mutual funds and investing.

We did not know how to identify content formats that are going to work for us or will make a difference. With Cubicles, we wanted to take that leap of faith. And when TVF came in with this idea, we realised that it just fits so beautifully with what we're trying to do. The challenge was not to wear the hat of a marketer. As a marketer, we tend to think of our brands and messages first, and we throw our ideas at people. Audiences do respect the fact that these brands are the ones sponsoring the shows, but they also don't want it to be so overt that it interrupts their viewing.

Will there be any follow-up series or episodes? What kind of ROI is the brand expecting out of this series?

It's our first foray into this domain. We will first wait and watch how the responses are to this and how our intermediary community does perceive it. We are a community dependent on intermediaries to talk about this category. So this content also has to appeal to them. Once we start creating that framework of metrics, we will probably be able to judge whether the ROI makes sense or not and therefore will decide whether to go ahead or not. These are the only ROIs we are looking forward to since it is an education initiative.

We will do a couple of experiments more before we take a call on whether to continue it or not. Otherwise, we'll simply pivot to another form of content. So we're not averse to trying out a new thing.

After Cubicles, any more such plans of making your presence felt on OTT platforms in the coming years?

We're conscious of the fact that shows like Cubicles are expensive investments. But at the same time, we believe in the fact that we don't want to do something just once and get away with it. So, we are going to sort of explore more partnership opportunities with OTT platforms in general. The whole point to remember is finding brand integration opportunities which are very seamless.

How will your content strategy evolve in 2020?

We are going to invest more in the video, long-form content and conversational content. We are also trying to leverage the power of data. The challenge is how you value, respect and treat data in comparison to your gut and intuition. Because data tells you something completely different from what your gut or intuition is telling you. Therefore, brands need to keep themselves abreast with whatever's going on in the market today. They need to learn where the user is consuming content. We need to learn how to marry communication objectives and place ourselves where customers are present rather than expecting them to lose their comfort and come to us. That is the transition that we're trying to bring along while communicating.

Apart from that, we have a content-specific campaign in the pipeline, which we will release in January-February.

Any plans for exploring vernacular content?

We had always been operating in English. Moving to Hindi in itself was a challenge for us. We are trying to get better with these languages first. We recognise the value of the regional languages and how well people feel connected with that. However, it also depends on the kind of the brand and category one operates in and the kind of budget one has. We certainly think it is the space where we want to be. As a challenger brand, we may attempt some experiments in that space, depending on how things go, then will expand our footprints.

Ads can deliver brand awareness and recall. On the other hand, content can help engage with the consumers on a long-term basis and also convert business. Why do brands still keep reach, affinity and recall kind of objectives linked with content and also use them in terms of measurement metrics to gauge content performance?

It depends on the kind of the brand and the industry that we are talking to. For instance, a leading brand in a category might use platforms like TVF only to engage with people, because they don't have awareness/ recall-oriented challenges. A challenger brand in the category is probably going to use it more for awareness proliferation of a certain kind of messaging. 

How much of a believer are you in influencer-led content marketing? At times, it is seen brands bringing unrelated influencers on board to garner amplified reach. Doesn't it cause spillage of the marketing budget on influencer marketing? Shouldn't influencer marketing be highly targeted, and brands should only associate with influencers who are thought leaders in the related category?

Earlier, it was only about what the brands wanted influencers to say on their behalf. It used to be all scripted. Nowadays, people see through it and judge this for being inauthentic and insincere. The influencers themselves have started to recognise this. So, if a brand associate with an influencer to talk to an audience that it has never spoken to before, it can be used for top-of-the-funnel brand building. But can the brand expect him/ her to sell products for the brand? No.

Till the time an influencer is not a thought leader in that category or a professional advisor in our category, they simply can't be influencers. Our independent financial advisors will probably be the most authentic influencers for us, perhaps not as exciting as a celebrity.