Edelweiss Mutual Fund collaborates with Josh Talks for its Advice Zaroori Hai campaign

In recent times, experts have been advising why every mutual fund company should invest in content marketing as a channel for awareness and interest generation among audiences.

But the role of advice is often undermined when it comes to investing and life in general. And that is one struggle most mutual companies face while advising its target audience: where and when to invest.

Edelweiss Mutual Fund has been running its Advice Zaroori Hai campaign under its investor education initiative for last two years to reaffirm the message that professional advice is important while investing hard-earned money.

It has collaborated with content platform Josh Talks as an extension of this campaign where it has its mutual fund advisors sharing their personal life stories on how advice has helped them in setting up successful business, with no change in its brand’s positioning.

The video:

The videos will be distributed in eight languages—Bangla, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Malayalam, Hindi and English —across tier two, three and four cities.

To spread awareness on the importance of financial advice, talks of 10 financial advisors will be released on the Josh Talks YouTube Channels to motivate the youth of India. As this is an ongoing campaign that will run over a long period, the brand has not earmarked any specific spend at the moment.  

Radhika Gupta

Radhika Gupta, CEO Edelweiss Asset Management, Edelweiss, while interacting with BuzzInContent, said, “We believe that this campaign will create much-needed awareness among investors around the role of advice while investing and what advisors can do for them. This can increase MF penetration among young investors in the right way as this generation is often referred as the Google generation.” 

She said stories are a more impactful way to reach to consumers and the brand has been focusing on this format more. 

In addition to posting the videos on the platform’s YouTube channels, the videos will be posted on the Advisor Zaroori Hai website to garner a massive online reach.  

Based on consumer insights, Gupta said the brand realised how investors need handholding of an expert to manage their investments over longer period of time, but still many young first-time investors today invest without seeking advice.

“We spoke to MF investors and non-investors and came to know about the confusion they face while choosing right funds for their goals from the plethora of available options. Most new investors are not aware of the differences between schemes and end up choosing them inappropriately. We studied their behaviour over different market cycles and found investors often succumb to cognitive biases while investing, which leads to irrational behaviour and at times losses in investing. We found money that is invested using professional advice stayed longer and is more likely to fulfil investing goals,” she added.

And that is why the brand chose sharing real stories instead of advertisements as it would have a high impact in reaffirming the ‘Advice Zaroori Hai’ message.

Also, Josh Talks garners over 20 million views across all its channels on an average (calculated monthly). On an average, these videos are most viewed by the youth in tier two, three cities of India, as well as other neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and the UAE. 

“Josh Talks was a perfect fit for the message, format and audience we were targeting for this campaign. The audience of the platform is mostly millennials from large as well as smaller towns who are the right fit for increasing mutual fund penetration in India. The captive audience that they have along with their vernacular reach proved to be a great fit for our content partnership,” she added.

Supriya Paul

When Supriya Paul, Co-Founder and Director at Josh Talks, asked what prompted the campaign, she said, “We are driven by the mission to address issues faced by the youth with respect to jobs, career opportunities, acquiring skill sets and more. Through our unique model called Josh Skills, we equip students and job seekers with relevant skill sets (such as Spoken English, Financial Literacy, Personality Development, etc.) to help them become gainfully employed. The larger purpose behind the campaign is to facilitate financial literacy among the youth of the country, specifically from tier two, three Indian cities.

Over the past few years, a majority of the brands in the same space including DSP Mutual Funds have come up with various formats of content in collaboration with various content platforms, to educate and aware audiences around investment.

So, how different is this campaign?

Gupta said these talks are in partnership with advisers not only from metro cities but smaller towns too. He said this will bring these advisors in front of investors, which will help investors connect with them for investment advice.

Paul explained how Josh Talks wanted to use the approach of storytelling and began its research on stories of renowned IFAs of India, which led to a content partnership with Edelweiss Asset Management.

“Our content is unique in two ways— first, it is disseminated in eight vernacular languages (hence has greater reach among individuals in smaller towns and cities). Secondly, our videos seek to solve real problems faced by individuals using real examples. The campaign, which has talks on financial literacy, will be undertaken by some of the leading professionals from the financial industry to share their journey and give advice on how to be financially wiser. These talks will then be disseminated in regional languages to touch different parts of the country,” she added.