Tata Mutual Fund launches audio fiction drama series for investor education

Tata Mutual Fund, in collaboration with Aawaz.com, announced the roll-out of 'Ishq Bhi, Risk Bhi' - a fictional audio series in Hindi with investor education theme built inside the story. The season comprising ten episodes will be exclusively available on Aawaz.com, the podcast platform with original programming in Indian languages.

The series aims to make investor education around mutual funds more engaging to the audience by taking them along the journey of the shows fictional characters whose life decisions mimic the complexity of real-life investment choices.

The series ‘Ishq Bhi, Risk Bhi': 

http://bit.ly/2oEdgR4

B30 cities have been steadily contributing to the growth of SIP and mutual funds in India, and catering to these audience grows the pie for everyone in the category. By being the first to take the audio storytelling, Tata Mutual Fund stands to gain a clutter-free, and 100% share of voice.

‘Ishq Bhi, Risk Bhi’, the light-hearted drama has been made keeping in mind users who come from non-metro cities who often are not the target of investor education programmes but who today constitute a significant chunk of participants in the equity markets.

'Ishq Bhi, Risk Bhi' follows its male protagonist, Sandeep, who hails from a small town and Delhi born Preeti, whose first meeting with Sandeep gets off to an awkward start and an unexpected twist sends our fumbling male protagonist into hands of his "mamaji" (uncle) whose sage advice might just help to get Preeti back.

Explaining the collaboration, MVS Murthy, Head Marketing, Digital and Corporate Communications, Tata Mutual Funds, said, "As a fund house we are focused on being relevant to new customers and across all the emerging markets – B30, as per industry parlance. To be relevant beyond the metros, we need to bring the other cities to town. This can happen by using local language – hence Hindi. The show also gives wings to the aspiration of millennials for whom it does not matter where they came from, but are very sure where they want to be. The emotion of love and the pings of growing investment, will always bring a spring in their walk.”

As of June 2019, PWC estimates Indian podcast listener base was at 40 million by end of 2018, a 58% rise from the year before. But if we consider the prime minister's ‘Mann Ki Baat’ as a podcast, then the baseline instantly moves to 600 million listeners.

“The Mutual Fund industry is at the cusp of booming into a 100 Trillion (Source: BCG Report: Unlocking the 100 trillion opportunities) sized gravy train. It is imperative that we leverage the power of digital, voice which plays in the background yet holds attention and speak a language investors understand. At Tata Mutual Fund we have been actively working on invoking affinity with retail investors across the board. Our lineage makes ‘Trust’ a default characteristic. Our distribution partners also find it to be a worthy calling card in their interactions with investors. Our first investor education initiative had videos with Prof. Simply Simple being the protagonist. This is our first attempt at voice led investor education. Am sure the show will get audiences to create checkboxes for early and regular investing,” said Prathit Bhobe, MD and CEO, Tata Asset Management.”

Talking about the launch, Sreeraman Thiagarajan, co-founder of aawaz.com, said "We are extremely delighted to partner with Tata Mutual Fund, a brand from the house of Tata which is synonymous with trust. It validates our belief that audio storytelling is a potent medium for brands to engage their audience across the nation, where video has limited penetration.”

With a significant chunk of listeners aged between 25 to 34 years, Aawaz.com, owned by Aagrayah Technologies, is aiming to spearhead brand collaboration in the booming and yet nascent audio medium in India. Aawaz.com listeners will be able to binge the 10-episode audio series from October 1st.