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In 2023, the Banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) industry utilised AI and CGI to engage with their audiences and market their services, taking a different approach to their marketing strategies. While the modes of communication have evolved in the advent of technological developments, January, February and March play a crucial role in BFSI marketing every year.
This quarter, media experts note that the focus has been on leveraging massive sports tournaments along with further development in artificial intelligence as key methods to reach the target audience.
Jitto George, EVP - Media Solutions, Schbang shares, “The entire BFSI industry spends around 5000 crore annually out of which 35 to 38% is in this quarter. This year we could see a 10% increase in spending overall including this quarter.”
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It has been noted that TV, Print and Radio spends alone grew by 25% last year. With this, George mentions that on average, TV and Print attract 24% each while OOH and radio attract 7% and 5% respectively and digital attracts 40% of media investment.
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Sports play a key role in BFSI marketing
Sports partnerships, whether it is through sponsorship opportunities or collaborations with sports personalities have been an area of focus during JFM in 2024. The recently culminated Women’s Premier League (WPL) and the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) have presented the perfect opportunity to reach out to the wide cricket community in India.
Cricket has been a key platform for BFSI brands, driving both reach and engagement. Sponsorships and partnerships have helped maximize brand metrics, says Shrikant Shenoy, Associate VP – Strategy, Lodestar UM.
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For instance, Shenoy mentions that IDFC First Bank has secured title sponsorship rights for all BCCI matches for domestic or international cricket for the next three years. IPL has opened association opportunities at both the tournament and individual team levels.
Along with this, it has been observed that Rupay, PayTM, and CRED have become IPL associate sponsors, with branding opportunities like ‘Rupay on the go’ boundary, PayTM branding on umpire uniforms, and CRED powerplay. Second-line sports have also seen a rise, with Rupay taking on the title sponsorship of the Prime Volleyball League.
Sharing why the BFSI industry has found a liking in sports, Ruchika Varma, Chief Marketing Officer, Future Generali India Insurance, says, “Sports marketing campaigns, if executed properly, can serve as an excellent platform for reaching out to consumers and creating an impactful brand recall. Future Generali India Insurance has associated with cricket through the Women’s Premier League (WPL) as associate sponsors.”
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Varma believes that this has been the perfect platform to introduce their health insurance plan called ‘HEALTH POWHER’ which caters to the unique needs of women. This product akin to the league, has been specifically designed to meet the varied needs of women across their life stages.
On the other hand, Nimish Agrawal, Executive Vice President and CMO, Niva Bupa comments that the brand’s TG is more male and tier 1 centric, and it has found two large tent-pole events to leverage in this period, which is IPL, Budget / Elections.
“For IPL, the digital formats have really pushed the ad spends. There are varied levels of targeting available which cater to all kinds of advertisers given their budget. We also have leveraged IPL and find great ROI on the spends on the digital format and have seen good traction on our website in terms of new user visits, lead volume and bump in Google searches whenever we advertise in live cricket.”
According to TAM's AdEx report for H1 2023, it was observed that the BFSI sector witnessed a significant uptick in advertising spends with a 91% increase in digital ad impressions compared to the same period in 2022.
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TV as a medium is explored for media events like budget and elections than digital, says Agrawal based on the brand’s analytics.
Agrawal states, “On an average, approximately 40-45% of the annual budget is deployed in Jan-Mar period. The media mix for the quarter has Television as the central pivot, given its mass reach and cost efficiency, followed by digital channels to drive an incremental reach.”
While cricket is the largely watched sport in the country, many BFSI brands have also turned their focus on sports like Badminton. In 2023, DBS Bank India closely tracked the burgeoning popularity of badminton in India, and announced a partnership with five young and promising badminton stars, Chirag Shetty, Satwik Rankireddy, Lakshya Sen, Gayatri Gopichand, and Tressa Jolly.
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Shoma Narayanan, Managing Director and Head - Group Strategic Marketing and Communications, DBS Bank India says that the sport of badminton embodies attributes such as precision, dedication, teamwork, and building trusted partnerships, which closely align with the brand values.
“We executed a series of impactful partnerships and campaigns this quarter, allocating approximately 25-30% of our annual marketing budget for this period,” Narayanan elaborates on the spends during JFM.
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Similar to DSB Bank, Equitas Small Finance Bank has taken to collaborating with sports personalities like Smriti Mandhana and Rani Rampal as part of their marketing initiatives in the past.
Vignesh Murali, Senior Vice President & Head – Brand, Marketing & Corp Com., Equitas SFB comments, “Our past collaborations with sportswomen like Smriti Mandhana and Rani Rampal have helped us improve our brand reputation and positioned us as a socially responsible bank that values gender diversity. Furthermore, women’s underrepresentation in financial decision-making being a reality, endorsing women's sports and personalities helps us inspire them to take interest in financial products and indulge in financial decision making.”
With IPL going in full swing, the brand has decided to partner with Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans to maximize their reach.
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Murali shares that Chennai is the largest market for the brand, which makes this strategic partnership inevitable. Along with this, they are also focusing on increasing their brand’s presence in Gujarat, hence the partnership with Gujarat Titans for the last two years.
Media allocated
Shrikant Shenoy of Lodestar UM indicates that JFM tends to be a busy quarter for BFSI, with multiple categories like life insurance, health insurance, and home finance stepping up consumer outreach to meet the demand for tax-saving investments.
These categories usually lead the list of top BFSI spenders in JFM, displacing other big spenders like credit cards, retail banking and financial services.
Shenoy also remarks, “While Television tends to be the lead medium, commanding a larger share of the ad pie and driving awareness for categories like insurance, Print has staged a resurgence in recent times, vying for 40-50% of JFM spends on traditional media, as per syndicated data. Radio has successfully held on to 10-15% of spends, effectively playing the role of a reminder or support medium.”
DBS Bank kick-started its year with a partnership with Shark Tank India for its TV spending. The brand strategically directed a significant portion of the marketing budget towards TV and OOH channels to enhance the visibility of this association. Additionally, a digital and OOH campaign spotlighted the brand’s clients, including SMEs and social enterprises. Through this, they showcased their success stories, highlighting how DBS Bank India has been a partner in their journey.
The brand has also leveraged AI for its creative capabilities. Shoma Narayanan of DBS Bank India shared that the brand launched a new edition of its 'Sounds of the Budget,' which is now in its fifth year in February. This campaign aimed to help younger audiences understand the intricacies of budget announcements in an engaging manner.
Narayanan comments, “While most digital campaigns explaining the Union Budget rely on static visuals or talking head videos on social media, our approach with 'Sounds of the Budget' was more innovative. We transformed real-time updates from the finance minister's announcements into short-form rap songs with easily understandable lyrics, all crafted with the assistance of generative AI.”
Equitas SFB has focused on executing product-focused marketing campaigns to bolster sales. This involves hosting over 1000 on-ground events nationwide, strategically promoted digitally to maximize participation.
Vignesh Murali shares, “These activities are tactically planned in Metro and Urban areas, notably targeting gated communities, malls, fun zones, family outing spots and association tie-ups. Overall our BTL activation takes the front seat in this quarter where we park near to 7-10% of our annual budget.”
These engagements are aligned with the celebration of seasonal festivities, sports tournaments, wellness camps, etc. to enhance consumer connect. The brand also adopts an omnichannel media strategy, with a digital-first approach while leveraging the key pin code areas on pan-India level.
Murali states, “Approximately 60% of our media budget is allocated to digital platforms including OTT, Display, Video, Search, Social Media and Influencer marketing, while the remaining 40% is invested in offline channels such as TV, Outdoor, Print and on-ground activations.”
Niva Bupa’s Nimish Agrawal reveals that the brand is currently using AI and LLM and focusing on Chatbots / Voice bots and Content.
He states, “Our category is more advisory in nature, where a large part of consumer problem is to understand the category a bit better. We intend to leverage the Chat/Voice bot to help consumers better understand the category, product, adequate coverage, etc.”
This helps Niva Bupa scale the coverage on the customer side while unlocking efficiency on the telecaller/advisor side. Agrawal comments that content creation takes 70% of the team’s bandwidth and 40% of the marketing cost.
Of the 11 brands that picked up the tender document for the IPL sponsorship till 2028, five of them are from the BFSI industry. This itself shows the potential of such partnerships.
With a focus on sports tournaments like WPL, IPL and underrated sports, the BFSI sector has kept its efforts on leveraging traditional marketing strategies and newer technologies to make the best out of the quarter.
Schbang’s Jitto George brings the conversation to a close by saying, “If India is poised to become a 7 trillion economy, the only way it will be able to double from the current number is by having money in the market and the BFSI industry is the only one that could enable it and hence we will see a steep rise in spending over the next few years from BFSI brands specifically.”