At the Pitch BFSI Summit 2023, brand and marketing strategist Ajay Kakar shed light on the past and future of financial brands. Kakar shared that when he joined Ogilvy, back in the 1990s, he set up a financial practice for the agency.
“No one had heard of financial brands or practices at that time because the order of the day was IPOs or public issues,” he said. One evening, a WPP person asked Kakar “what even are these financial brands you talk about”. This was 1991, when people asked what financial brands were. Cut to 2023, financial brands are one of the largest spending categories in the country.
Speaking of how a customer perceives the financial services space, Kakar explained, “He doesn’t see banks, mutual funds, life insurance. He doesn’t see Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai. He just sees India. He just sees financial services. And he sees a host of brands.”
LIC and mutual funds have all been around for over 60 years and have attracted some of the top brands across the globe, who have invested in the category and the country. “But the fact remains that if you talk about the industry from 1991 to 2023, you will hear two words - underpenetrated and this category is sold, not bought,” Kakar said.
He shared an experience from the 1990s when he was asked by SEBI and AMFI to help them with their investor education. “In 1990, we were talking about the need to educate investors. In 2023, AMFI is one of the largest spenders in the financial services industry, again for investor education,” he said.
Kakar feels that this industry was spending a lot of time investing in investor education. “Yet we feel that the investor is not educated,” he added.
He further explained that three words (Life, Zindagi, Sapne) are an investor’s constant state of mind. “I have never met anyone who wants a car loan or a home loan. I have met people who want a car and a home. What we don’t understand is that we take ourselves very seriously. Nobody wants a car loan or home loan, it is just a necessary evil,” he mentioned.
Kakar explained with a Rishi Kapoor classic from back in the days called ‘Paisa ye Paisa’ which basically said having no money is a problem, having too much money is also a problem. “And therefore, I call the Indian financial services industry a 1.4 billion opportunity,” he said.
Taking the example of ICICI Prudential’s mutual fund and life insurance offerings, focusing on the logo, Kakar expressed disappointment stating that it seems as though they were speaking to the manufacturer, not the consumer. “Ït is an industry malice,” he said.
Kakar added, “I will always be a fan of Kotak because they were the first people in my mind who thought of a monolithic brand. It is not a house of brands, it is a branded house.”