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In a country like India where there is close to an 80% literacy rate, a survey by the National Centre for Financial Education says that only 27% of Indians are financially literate, as said by GP Garg, Executive Director, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) at an NSE event in 2020.
Despite the Indian government's push for credit loans for small businesses, the lack of financial knowledge, the lack of trust and the fears of having to pay back the loans with interest even if businesses don't succeed make Indians cautious.
The wholesale loan book of non-banks —comprising non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and housing finance companies (HFCs) — de-grew by 3-5% in the first half of fiscal 2020, following a de-growth of 2% in the second half of fiscal 2019.
To build more trust amongst MSMEs, there has been an emergence of quality and informative content.
Back when Godrej Capital was launched on the brink of COVID-19, the brand announced its product 'Zero Touch Loans' and educated the digital consumer base through influencer partnerships.
A similar theme is to be noted in all of its marketing campaigns as the brand has focused on addressing consumer pain points and fears and it provided them with informative content to make it easier.
To help businesses with their operations and expansion plans, Godrej Capital has introduced flexible business loans this year, specifically targeting MSMEs. This is a challenge, however, because 45% of enterprises avoid approaching banks for funding, having faced issues in raising unsecured credit.
Godrej Capitals's Chief Marketing Officer, Nalin Jain shares insights on addressing pain points faced by business owners through informative content that upholds the legacy of the 126-year-old company.
Edited Excerpts:
Could you share insights into Godrej Capital's recent marketing initiatives and campaigns? What are the key messages you aim to convey to your target audience through these initiatives?
We started four years ago, just before COVID-19 and had to take a hibernation for about a year. Godrej wanted to foray into financial services so the seven of us, which we call the Management Committee, really including our CEO together set up a team to start working on it. We do a variety of products but we started with only home loans.
One of the recent campaigns was primarily the launch of our product - Business loans. We started Business loans in April this year and pushed it out in the market from July onwards. The hashtag for the campaign is ‘#IssLoanmeLoadNahi’. This was an interesting journey as we did research and tried to figure out the difficulties that business owners face, apart from the regular ones that include saying ‘Loan nahi milta,’ ‘Time pe nai milta,’ ‘Interest rate zyaada hai’.
The real crux of this is that we realised that a lot of people today are linking loans to a load and that’s how we got the word load for the campaign. Consumers want loans but they are very scared of taking a loan. We built the campaign around this insight.
The target audience for the campaign is the slightly top-tier segment in the SME or the MSME group, who want to look at our loans for growth. We went back to our customers and asked them why think it is a load and their answer was that irrespective of whether they get business or not, they have to pay the loan amount back. The idea was that they were not able to take that jump for growth. So we have tried to link the challenges to tell people that this is for your growth and benefit and highlight the core offerings of flexible repayment options, zero collaterals, and quick loan sanctions.
It's a 360-degree campaign covering 31 markets across social media and digital platforms, including Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and OTT platforms like Hotstar and Jio, Radio and OOH.
What roles do different mediums play in the overall marketing game plan? Could you share the percentage allocated to these mediums in the media mix?
Every medium has a critical role to play. Print is more detailed where you can grab more attention. There is radio, which from our perspective, is very cost-effective, especially considering people still listen to radios. Radios are also getting innovative with streaming radios and airwave radios in today's market.
Largely, digitally dominates the entire piece. The understanding that we go by on this front is that the most important thing today for any marketer is to grab attention. Attention spans have reduced as the first two seconds have to grab your attention or you will swipe past it. around it. So you know, all of them play important roles.
Targeting is very specific in social media. While creating content, you need to talk to your audience with quick landing messages.
If you want to tell a story, it has to be told in parts so that you create some curiosity and move from there. So I think the most important part here is content creation.
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I don't have a percentage to put but we predominantly go with digital and follow it with radio to complement that entire piece. We also do a lot of outdoor and add print to it.
Television is an important medium but not really mass for us because we are very targeted to 31 cities.
Could you describe the specific demographics or segments you are reaching with your financial services and marketing efforts?
We are catering to high-salaried audiences who are generally buying houses with a few falling under the percentage of self-employed.
Our larger focus in the portfolio is on the loans for SME owners who are looking for growth, with the loans starting from 10 lakh rupees of unsecured loans and going up to even five crores of secured loans.
They are segmented across 31 markets with the demographic profile falling anywhere between 35 to 50 years, the second generation, older and intergenerational, and sometimes we even get younger people.
ASCI has recently released guidelines for financial influencers to disclose their certifications. Why there was a need for these guidelines and what role will it play in changing the fintech game?
Financial advice has to come with accountability and responsibility. Now, accountability is a very loose word here, but responsibility is very, very important. If you look at the core product is money as you buy, borrow and lend money which also means you lose real money.
These guidelines are important for ensuring that the people are aware that the advice that they are getting is sound. While the decision is there, nobody is going to force the decision. It's very important that people get the right advice.
I think it's good for the other side as well, where there is more trust that develops when you see some credentials coming in. I don't think it's regulation but it is more in the public interest that people are putting in these guidelines to ensure that when you are consuming this data and taking financial decisions around it, you are sure of what's going on and who is giving you this information and why you are taking this decision.
Are there any specific challenges that the brand has had to navigate when it comes to marketing the brand?
Challenges are always there, but specifically for us, maintaining the 126-year-old legacy of a trusted brand like Godrej was a very difficult thing for us while putting out our messages.
For example, I don't think we ever had that idea of doing anything to make it viral for the sake of it because we have to uphold the responsibility and accountability that the brand holds.
So, the challenge for us is how we curate our content and tailor the messaging.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a growing role in marketing. Can you share how Godrej Capital is leveraging AI for its brand campaigns and customer engagement?
We use AI predominantly from two sides - one when we look at targeting customers. The second being remarketing to the customer base. The third biggest wave where we use AI is data.
The data is collected from any of the campaigns that we do, cross-pollinating it with our digital assets, with our customers, with any other interactions that we have with our database around it.
Using AI to generate better personas and sharper targeting is what we do externally and then we deploy it into the social media platforms or digital platforms. We also want to use it for creating much quicker and faster content generation.
In the financial services industry, inclusivity and accessibility are becoming increasingly important themes in advertising. How does Godrej Capital contribute to this trend and ensure that its messaging reflects inclusivity?
Godrej as a brand has always been very inclusive across all domains. I think we have done some really good work around it.
First and foremost, on the home loan side, we cater to all genders from that perspective. Heterosexual people have the privilege of getting loans everywhere because the entire system is designed to cater to that system. We have specifically come out with a policy for same-sex partners to take loans with us today.
As we are expanding and going from 11 cities to 31, we are aiming to address the language barrier from the inclusivity point of view. We are changing our narrative to fit more regional languages so that people across cities can understand us.
We are also expanding to financial inclusivity. Our focus is on high-end loans in metro cities, but we are looking at doing affordable loans and foraying into agricultural loans.
What notable trends have you observed in the financial services industry when it comes to advertising and marketing strategies, and how has Godrej Capital adapted to these trends?
The focus on digital is extremely important, both from the advertising point of view and the product point of view. We spend more than 50% focus on digital.
We call ourselves as ‘born in clout’. Our advertising is digital first and our consumers use a lot of digital technology. We had a digital focus for our campaign ‘Zero Touch Loans’ with comedian Rahul Subramanian.
The next trend is the focus on content. Content is critical. It has to be bite-sized, and relevant to the audience.
Since we have much to do with personalization, we are also starting to look at AI-generated content. Apart from that, data-driven marketing is the new normal. If you are not looking into that for marketing, you are not in the entire thing. We (Godrej Capital) are investing in all of it.