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<ul><li>With the end of the year just round the corner, we bring you our latest trends report that talks about marketing trends in the <keyword id="6356925" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="bfsi" source="Orion">BFSI</keyword> sector.</li><li>Vishal Subharwal Head, Marketing, Digital Business &amp; E-commerce, <keyword id="472962" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="hdfc-life" source="Orion">HDFC Life</keyword>, <keyword id="878756" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sandeep-walunj" source="Orion">Sandeep Walunj</keyword>, CMO, Nippon Life India Asset Management Ltd, <keyword id="328559" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ajay-kakar" source="Orion">Ajay Kakar</keyword>, CMO, <keyword id="6391710" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="aditya-birla-capital" source="Orion">Aditya Birla Capital</keyword>, <keyword id="4121510" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="jasneet-bachal" source="Orion">Jasneet Bachal</keyword> – Chief Marketing Officer, YES Bank, <keyword id="178450" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="abhishek-gupta" source="Orion">Abhishek Gupta</keyword>, CMO, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, Karthik Raman, Chief Marketing Officer and Head - Products, Ageas Federal Life Insurance and <keyword id="9793035" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nikhil-bharadwaj" source="Orion">Nikhil Bharadwaj</keyword>, Head, Corporate Communications, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance share their thoughts.</li></ul>As the world slowly recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, financial services are slowly but steadily changing their way of doing business and also the way they engage and communicate with their consumers. In the last 2 years, there has been a massive shift in the way consumers interact with the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) players. With the change in consumer behavior, there has also been a shift in the way these organizations are communicating with their consumers. There is a lot more empathy, the last year has about putting the spotlight on courage, resilience and hope. Going ahead too, players in the BFSI sector will need to catch the pulse of the consumers, and reach out to them at the touch-points they are most comfortable at. The need of the hour also is to listen to consumers, figure out their pain-points and try and solve them. Seamless customer experience will play an intrinsic role in keeping brands top-of-mind. The future will be all about convenience and simplicity. To understand a few larger trends we can expect to see in the BFSI sector in the year ahead, we reached out to some key players, and here is what they had to say: Vishal Subharwal Head-Marketing, Digital Business &amp; E-commerce HDFC Life <div type="image" title="Vishal Subharwal" msid="88591744" hostid="261"></div> I believe a ‘user first, omni-channel’ approach to be a trend that marketers need to cater to 2022. Let me elaborate my thoughts. To be successful, business organizations have to move in sync with larger trends seen in wider society. These changes are often reflected in various elements such as popular culture, technology adoption curves, environmental awareness. The role of marketing is to identify such changes ahead of the curve &amp; align resources accordingly. Consumers no longer look at old-school structural boundaries but are more focused on the seamlessness of experience offered to them across touch-points, be it a physical branch or an online platform. This is a trend commonly reflected across industries, as on a standalone basis neither model serves the customer needs well. When was the last time you saw an online payments intermediary get a physical banking license, an online medicine intermediary purchase a physical diagnostic chain, an online insurance broker opening physical branches, retail stores with online integrations. There are many such examples. In the context of rapidly evolving business models, marketing capabilities hence need to be aligned towards building superior omni-channel capabilities for customer acquisition &amp; lifecycle management. Sandeep Walunj, Chief Marketing Officer, Nippon Life India Asset Management Ltd <div type="image" title="Sandeep W 1" msid="88591952" hostid="261"></div> There are three very interesting trends that I feel will dominate 2022 in post-Covid Indian BFSI: 1. Social Discussion Forums where advanced users and experts handhold first-time users/ information seeker Seeds were sown during COVID when people dropped their inhibitions against digital financial transactions/ online investing. Information seeking/ handholding was the logical next (first) step and that’s what’s going to be mainstream. Going further, neutral enabling platforms will equip potential customers with information and tools to make right choices. These could also be offered/ run by an industry body or Government/ quasi-government bodies (example: MF Central mooted by SEBI) 2. Agents/ Brokers connecting with customers through Video Bots The evolution mentioned in point 1 above will further lead to distributors of financial products connecting with potential customers through video bots on social media wherein questions can be asked, individual proposals can be sent, appointments sought and transactions concluded through bots. 3. Social Commerce 2.0 with Meta+Insta leading the way Shopping while consuming social media seemed like an alien concept in early 20s but it is clearly how the consumers prefer it/ want it and desire it. We all saw the string response Meta generated and I am sure brands would be hatching their plans to leverage this trend. Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer, Aditya Birla Capital <div type="image" title="Ajay_Kakar_DSC_1575" msid="88591665" hostid="261"></div> Uncertainty will remain a way of life, in the foreseeable future. But as they say, tough times are the true test of character, and in these times, it holds equally true for a brand. While there will be a temptation to lay low and see how the uncertainty pans out, such times will help sift the men from the boys. He who sows during this time, will reap the most. Now. And hereafter. Towards this end a ‘spray and pray’ approach will not help. Brands will have to keep a finger on the customer’s pulse; be it their felt, or even unfelt (as yet) needs. Brands that can anticipate the customer’s need will have to offer relevance, simplicity, and comfort in these ever-changing times. Speed to market will become a barometer of success. While anticipating the customer’s future needs, I believe that a brand must not place all its bets only on the digital world. The customer will want and will exercise a choice. High touch and high tech. As he wants it, when he wants it. At the end of the day, the customer remains the king and the brand that not merely listens, but makes its customers feel heard for all their said and unsaid needs, in the times like these, will live to narrate the tale.” Jasneet Bachal – Chief Marketing Officer, YES Bank <div type="image" title="Jasneet Bachal" msid="88591695" hostid="261"></div>While Banks have been consistently trying to engage the ‘new to banking’ generation - Gen Z and late millennials, building a stronger connection with them will be a key trend for banks in the coming year. As digital natives, this audience has naturally come to expect digital-first experiences that are seamless across apps and platforms. Therefore, their expectation from banking is significantly different – a near-instant fulfilment which the banks will need to accommodate through products and services, in order to address this shift in behaviour. To offer a differentiated banking suite that meets these expectations, banks will need to create simplistic and personalized solutions that can come alive by re-imagining customer journeys for this segment. Using purpose-driven marketing that appeals to their emotional motivators – their beliefs, drivers and cultural environment – banks can cater to the experiences they are looking for. In sync with this, evolving the design language and communication, with a focus on simplicity and relatability, will help establish a lasting connect. Abhishek Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance <div type="image" title="Abhishek Gupta -- IMG_6499" msid="88592207" hostid="261"></div> Customer experience, data protection and social consciousness will be the three dominant trends for the BFSI sector in 2022. The last two years of the pandemic have recast customer expectations from brand experiences across various platforms. In line with these changes, brands will work on building consistency in CX, irrespective of the purchase or service channel. They will also make efforts on easing access to insurance by continuing to invest in multi-channel capabilities. While the pandemic has bolstered the digital opportunity, it has also raised concerns over data protection. As data becomes increasingly important for businesses, there is an improving awareness among customers regarding data privacy. With giants like Google and Apple making first move towards data protection, there is a looming threat to the efficacy of marketing campaigns. Brands will proactively craft inclusive data protection strategies so that customers can stay in control of their data. Lastly, brands will increasingly align with a social purpose that best reflects their brand values. Of all the social initiatives, Environment, Sustainability and Corporate Governance will be higher on priority list. Karthik Raman, Chief Marketing Officer and Head - Products, Ageas Federal Life Insurance <div type="image" title="Mr. Karthik Raman, CMO and Head-Products, Ageas Federal Life Insurance" msid="88608360" hostid="261"></div> The pandemic has made people realise that uncertainty in life is a reality and not just a sales pitch. Given that, the realisation of the need for insurance has increased, especially for term and health insurance. We have seen demand rising, not just in the metros and Tier 1 cities but even in the smaller towns and rural areas. With reduced spending on lifestyle expenses, people have greater disposable income in hand which they are keen on investing in financial instruments such as life insurance. Parents too, are increasingly keen on investing in child plans. Findings from our recent #FutureFearless survey have shown that the pandemic has influenced Indian parents to rethink their financial health and priorities for their children. Saving for their children’s education, future and milestones has emerged as the top priority for parents, along with saving for medical emergencies. In 2022, as an industry, we need to further capitalise on this demand. Using various platforms, especially the cost-effective digital medium, we need to further educate people and create awareness on the role of insurance in financially securing themselves and their families against life’s uncertainties, while allowing them to pursue their dreams. Nikhil Bharadwaj, Head – Corporate Communications, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance <div type="image" title="Nikhil Bharadwaj, Head - Corporate Communications, Bajaj Allianz General..." msid="88591976" hostid="261"></div> The pandemic has taught us that communication is of utmost importance not just for your customers, but also for other stakeholders including employees. Going forward, simplicity and authenticity, will be the most important part of all communication! While inclination towards digitization is increasing, print is not going away, in fact I see it making a strong come back. Digital media is surely the future and I see another year where this belief is reinforced further. In fact, we’re already listening to talks of OTT platforms of news channels, which might be something totally new with custom content. On the internal communications side, as always it remains as a tool which helps organizations provide right information to their employees. However, I feel that it will also play a role of culture builder wherein it will no longer be restricted to communications or HR team, but various other functions getting involved in it. With complex business models, we’ll see custom built communications for specific SBUs.

Marketing: Trends to watch out for in the BFSI sector in 2022

<ul><li>In our latest interview series, we talk to brands to understand how they are coping with the new normal and their strategies towards navigating these difficult times.</li><li><keyword id="878756" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Sandeep-Walunj">Sandeep Walunj</keyword>, CMO, Nippon Life India Asset Management shares with us a few advantages of selling a digital product, why there is a need to change the marketing strategy to help consumers through these unprecedented days, and the importance of empowering your employees to be prepared for a crisis. </li><li>He further helps us understand how the <keyword id="6357979" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="mutual-funds">mutual funds</keyword> industry has been shaping up in the past two months, how long it will take to recover and what its future holds. </li></ul><keyword id="8763838" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="covid-19">COVID-19</keyword> has altered the way we walk, work, communicate with people or shop. It has pushed us to accept digitalisation at a rapid pace. Companies that offer digital solutions have seen an accelerating growth due to this sudden shift in consumer behaviour and nationwide lockdown. Being associated with a virtual product, Sandeep Walunj, CMO of Nippon Life India Asset Management has seen this trend emerge up close. The company was equipped well in advance to face the crisis and smoothly shifted to the work-from-home format. Now, after doing some social listening, it changed the course of its conversation to offering long-term solutions like securing long-term wealth, focusing on children’s education, well-being products and upped its short-term recovery-linked solutions. It has also seen an uptick in engagement on social media and consumers are reaching out to the company with their queries, not the other way round. As a result, Nippon Life Asset Management has doubled its content pieces to help them choose the right product in a crisis that is thrown in our way. Walunj further shared with us how the BFSI industry is bound to change after the pandemic, why the brand continues to invest more in television and digital mediums, and how the companies need to do their bit to help the society in this tough time. Excerpts: Q. How has the last month been for you? How have you observed the consumer behaviour changing? Thankfully, we design and market a virtual product that can be propositioned remotely, explained over audio-video and easily traded digitally. Being always ahead of the curve on digital readiness (be it as a social forum for explaining the products, a transaction platform for buying and selling as well as digital customer care solutions for post-purchase service) we have been seeing more and more investors interacting with us digitally; over the last 5-6 years. So, in a way, I can say that we were prepared for this – we just had to scale up fast. Key changes I observed in investor behaviour are three: much higher traffic on our social and digital assets due to anxiety as well as curiosity, deeper interaction at almost every social touch-point (as a result of more time at their disposal) and a change in product mix towards both opportunistic short and very long-term products. As I said, some of it we anticipated and were ready for and a good part of it was down to quick and thorough adaptation by the team and the ecosystem. I must say a few words about the intermediaries – the mutual fund distributors/ advisors. We call them partners. They have been adapting very fast to digitization. Adoption of our digital transaction platform Business Easy, attending various training sessions to upskill/ refresh themselves as well as engaging very meaningfully on social media with their investors; they have been quick, comprehensive and positive. Q. In these uncertain and stressful days, how are you communicating with your audience? They are finding us rather than we finding them! Our social handles are buzzing with an unprecedented number of conversations, our partners are sharing almost double the usual number of content pieces with their investors and our sales teams are strengthening our distribution partnerships with stronger and deeper content integration. The focus is on product knowledge, correct usage, right investment habits in a situation like this and innovative products that address some opportunities that this crisis has thrown up. On another note, I want to talk about a very successful and deeply appreciated initiative, ‘Wealth of Talent’. This is aimed at our distribution (channel) partners and their families. We have encouraged them to shoot videos or photographs of themselves (or their family members) singing, dancing, drawing, exercising, cooking etc and upload the same on FB page called Wealth of Talent. We have an overwhelming number of videos on the page but more importantly, very grateful partners who are happy that their hidden talent (as well as their sons’ and daughters’) was recognised by the world; thanks to Nippon India Mutual Fund! Q. Have you introduced any new tools to empower your employees to deal with consumer queries? We were digitally-enabled to a large extent. Our IT team was quick to roll-out robust video interaction solutions that could easily handle larger number of participants. Our partners across social listening, ORM as well as marketing solution development were quick to scale up to higher volume, frequent reporting and higher output. We also rolled out many internal initiatives aimed at team bonding, connect and relaxation. All this ensured that our response, as an organization, has been as good as ever, if not better than ever! Q. Are you using this time to upskill them? Yes, there's suddenly more time on everyone’s hands. In a city like Mumbai, where a large number of us are based, one easily saves between 3-5 hours everyday due to work from home. Add to that less time wasters like extended lunch hours, and there is more time on everyone’s hands. Hence, even the regular work reviews are deeper, with concepts explained patiently, doubts asked freely and more data analysed. Add to that the very pertinent training sessions curated by the HR team and various vendor partners, and we have a rich menu of options to choose from. We also encouraged teammates to enroll for outside certification programmes (many institutions and universities have offered a wide range of courses) and many have opted for those too. Q. How do you see the BFSI industry shaping up after the lockdown? Parts of it like Insurance – which will have the least impact – will actually benefit from better appreciation of life’s uncertainties and increased saving/ reduced spending. They will be ready with innovative products, go-to-market processes and impactful communication solutions. Investment Services like ourselves will have to wait a little longer before the recovery is apparent before the volumes are back but then, in the meanwhile, we need to adapt quickly to changing consumer behaviour like securing long-term wealth, focusing on child education and well-being products and short-term recovery linked products. Asset financing and NBFC related business have a longer road to recovery but I am sure keeping in close touch with consumers and being on the toes for quick adaptation will help the more agile ones recover faster. Q. Tell us a bit about your partnership with business channels. What role do you play there? Television is a medium with the largest reach as well as considerable impact. We have been successfully partnering with them to get the right solutions to investors which are tailor-made for the current market scenario. I played the matchmaker here between the channel editors that wanted appropriate, relevant content to guide their viewers (in terms of right products to invest in) and our business team that wanted these products to be presented well and made visible. So briefing the editorial teams, liaising with them to shape powerful content and developing appropriate ads to leverage the association; were the key tasks, apart from the media buying and spot scheduling part. These partnerships are now growing beyond television and towards quality, respectful print publications that want to bring the cutting edge, more relevant products to their readers. Q. What does your media plan look like? Which medium gets your lion's share? Digital and Television, quite understandably. However, we keep observing, evaluating all media alternatives and deploy the most appropriate one given the communication and business task. Q. How are you doing your bit to help the society in these certain times? Nippon Life India AMC was the first Mutual Fund and amongst the first BFSI companies to donate a sum of Rs 5 crore to PM CARES as well as CM Relief Fund. Apart from our CSR funds, each and every employee contributed a minimum one day’s salary towards this. Many of us still proudly display badges on our social media profiles that show how proud we are for having achieved this feat. As mentioned above, we are among the first BFSI companies to fully enable our partners to work from home (digital platforms and scaling up) and also among the most resourceful ones in terms of marketing materials that help them to generate and fulfil leads. We have been regularly putting up useful and impactful communication to facilitate healthcare workers. We have also trained our employees (when our branches reopened) in guiding our investors properly about COVID-19 control measures and we actively called them ‘COVID Warriors’.

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Marketing: Trends to watch out for in the BFSI sector in 2022

Samarpita Banerjee

Marketing in the times of COVID-19: Nippon India Mutual Fund

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