Kotak Mahindra Bank bullish on content marketing with Ketan's Story

In a society that obsesses just over the glitz and glamour of celebrities and gets influenced by their actions, brands too started the trend to loop them in to endorse their products and services. Though, times are changing when the country has become more sensitive towards reality and crave for inspirational real-life stories.

Identifying this desire, brands churn out content hooks that trigger emotional connect with their audience, simultaneously getting us closer to concealed talent while stirring stories of struggle and passion.  To initiate a connection, Kotak Mahindra Bank told us Ketan’s story about #KonaKonaKhel.

Ketan’s story

It’s not a ‘once upon a time’ fairytale, if anything it’s the exact opposite, it’s real. Taking u through the life of a visually impaired Ketan in about two minutes, the film introduces us to the struggles of poverty and a family tucked within a small town in Gujarat, Valsad, far away from the bustle of luxury. Earning a livelihood by farming mangoes and selling cow milk, the humble background of the family is emphasized further.

As the film proceeds, the story makes a shift towards the undying passion Ketan has for cricket, where despite being visually impaired he does not hold himself back from following his dream. The film then takes bytes from various professionals involved in his career choice, from the President of Cricket Association for Blind to the Secretary Cricket Association for Blind, who praise the innate talent Ketan possesses for cricket.

After winning the Player-of-the-series in the 2014 Cricket World Cup for the Blind, they even went ahead to share that how Ketan is known as the Sachin Tendulkar of cricket for the blind.

Towards conclusion, the protagonist also shares how he encourages people to follow their passion of either playing or studying.

Campaign takeaways

To build a strong brand one should have a great product and a potent story for the audience. In the digital era, as the channel of communications keep increasing, a human connection somewhere helps to break through the clutter of monotonous marketing that tickles with emotions.

The campaign titled, Ketan’s story does not give any hint of the context and nor does it sound like a typical BFSI brand initiative. #KonaKonaKhel is an extensive campaign which the brand has taken up to promote the National Blind cricket tournament from January 11 to 13, 2017, where they introduce the passion of a bunch of dedicated players to a cricket frenzy nation.

Inspiration can be contagious and with this hope the brand has endeavored to build an identity for itself, slightly siding to cause marketing yet again, which clearly seems to be the unaddressed trend of the digital world today.

The brand relies on a powerful story to create a connect; strengthening the brand recall, they arranged for a cricket match between two strong teams - Kotak Mahindra Bank and the team of visually impaired cricket professionals, where the brand gave sunglasses to the team.

Though, the campaign narrates an intriguing story, it makes no mention of its character as a BFSI brand nor does it try to sell any of its services, but simply through this campaign endeavors to initiate a social media presence considering the cluster of marketers.

Social media hits

In a country like India, anything that has an essence of cricket automatically manages to garner attention and with 684,078 followers on the brand’s page, the film received 485k views with 52 k positive reactions on them.

The campaign received 176,006 views on the film that holds a match between the two teams and received 6.4k positive reactions. Through this video, the brand includes its team in the campaign thus hinting towards the intimacy they share with their cause.

This is so inspiring, #konakonakhel it's all about passion and dedication which makes you work hard, and working hard is the only success https://t.co/CQbSswFDLU

— Mayank (GoGetGuru) (@makthanvi) January 9, 2017

Uday Kotak, Managing director, Kotak Mahindra Bank, too became a part of one of the films where he praised the visually challenged for their grit and passion. Through this campaign, Kotak Mahindra Bank too enters the league of brands that take up cause marketing. But when it comes to promotion, the Indian brand yet again plays it safe by streaming their campaign on Facebook and Twitter.

With subtle brand placement, picking the right cause, and agile social media mix, Kotak Mahindra Bank managed to hit the bull's eye with the content marketing initiative.