Muthoot Finance bets on power of storytelling on radio with ‘Sunheri Soch' Season 2

Even with digital taking the centre stage in brands’ content game plans, nothing beats radio when it comes to sharing credible and authentic storytelling. 

Banking on the power of storytelling on radio, Muthoot Finance is back with Season 2 of ‘Sunheri Soch’. With ‘Atmanirbharta’ as its theme, the five-episode series in collaboration with Red FM will highlight real and inspiring success stories of common people who dreamt big and became self-reliant, especially during Covid-19, by availing gold loans from Muthoot Finance. 

The BFSI brand will be launching its first story of ‘Sunheri Soch’ series on February 28 that will feature Pappan Singh Gahlot, a mushroom farmer from Delhi who changed people’s lives during the pandemic with the help of Muthoot Finance. The story will be narrated by actor Madhuri Dixit Nene, and it will air first on Red FM followed by the various social media channels of the organisation.

Overwhelmed with the response from Season 1 of ‘Sunheri Soch’, in which stories were narrated by veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan, the brand decided to launch the second season and now intend to continue it as a brand IP in future as well. 

Abhinav Iyer

In a conversation with BuzzInContent.com, Abhinav Iyer, GM-Marketing and Strategy, Muthoot Finance, said that while in the past, the brand wasn’t a believer in advertising on radio, the success of Season 1 of ‘Sunheri Soch’ increased its trust in the potential of storytelling on the platform. 

He commented, “Radio came as a blessing to us after almost five years of not using the potential of that medium. Our campaign ‘Sunheri Soch’ uses the power of great storytelling. Storytelling is a concept that has been popularised by radio, with prominent storytellers like Anu Kapoor, Nilesh Mishra and other personalities. We researched and came up with tailor-made content for radio. We saw an increase in new customer acquisition and queries after the launch of Season 1. Therefore, we thought why not again invest in radio and celebrate storytelling.” 

Talking about the inception of the campaign, Iyer said that even before launching Season 1, Muthoot Finance had launched a book of testimonials, which had true stories of over 100 customers and how the brand helped them during the Covid period. “But since the book was in a physical form, we thought that it won’t reach many people compared to storytelling and that is how we landed upon the idea of ‘Sunheri Soch’, audio-visual forms obviously have more impact on people than a book, the objective was to inspire people and use their asset (Gold) in building their business.”

“We never thought of ‘Sunheri Soch’ as an IP, we executed it as a one-time campaign in order to inspire viewers with the success stories of our customers. But with a huge response from audiences and impact on our business, we thought of doing another season,” Iyer added. 

The brand executive shared that the actor was onboarded to narrate stories in Season 2 with the intent to appeal to the female consumers. Iyer said, “We wanted to have a strong female voice and bring freshness to the table. Gold as a commodity in a household has a female custodian. With Season 2, we wanted to appeal to the female audience and also have a personality that has similar stature as Mr Bachchan to narrate the stories. So, Madhuri ticked all of our boxes when we onboarded her.”

The brand has allocated 70% of its campaign budget to radio and digital and the rest across other mediums. 

On February 18, Muthoot Finance launched the promo of ‘Sunheri Soch’ Season 2:

On February 24, Muthoot Finance will launch the ‘Sunheri Soch’ anthem. On February 25, it will launch the anthem video with the RJs of Red FM. The five stories will be released every Monday starting February 28, 2022. The stories will be played multiple times on Red FM. Along with radio, the stories will also be promoted on digital platforms and podcasts.