We want to communicate a fund investing philosophy: Ramnik Chhabra

Being a late entrant in the mutual fund space, Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund seeks to position itself as a challenger brand that wants to disrupt the party of the large mutual fund brands and get customers to re-evaluate their current mutual fund investing decisions.

There are over 40 mutual fund companies in India and 555+ investment schemes for Indian retail investors to choose from. The mutual fund communication landscape is littered with pitches around the generic benefits of helping achieve long term goals.

Despite the presence of large players in this space with deep pockets, Motilal Oswal’s marketing campaigns, backed by good performances of their funds, are creating a new market for mutual funds. The campaign communication objective is to aggressively build spontaneous awareness for Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund and move into the consideration set.

Their new TV campaign, conceptualised by Cartwheel Creative Consultancy, went on air on January 10, 2016 across leading general and business news channels and on Colors channel.

Through the refrain – ‘Sirf ek sawaal. Why not Motilal Oswal?’ – the campaign aims to create awareness for Motilal Oswal MF and build consideration. The reason why investors should consider Motilal Oswal (unique Investment Philosophy, Stock Picking approach, No Load and Focused Portfolios) are elaborated on the website.

The communication idea is brought alive through three films and a supporting digital campaign and print ads.

Motilal Oswal Sugarcube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7QAJgGIWlI

Motilal oswal rubiks cube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJt9whsMjuY

Motilal oswal paper plane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDYZx4cS2R0

On how the company proposes to extend Motilal Oswal’s brand promise to its campaigns, Ramnik Chhabra, Director - Marketing, Motilal Oswal, said, “MOMFs is one of the few MF brands that has a single proposition across all its products. This proposition is ‘Buy Right Sit Tight’, that is, we use our QGLP methodology to buy the right stocks and hold onto them across their growth cycle. This philosophy is what has helped our mutual funds deliver benchmark beating returns. This campaign introduces the ‘Buy Right Sit Tight’ philosophy. The campaign would be extended by making ‘Buy Right Sit Tight’ come alive in various forms.”

Shedding light on how the communication for Motilal Oswal has evolved over the years, Chhabra elaborated, “The AMC started by launching Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and the focus during those NFOs was to present the proposition of each ETF product. Two years back we launched our equity mutual funds. Unlike the competition that either generically sells the benefit of a mutual fund (for example, SIPs, wealth acceleration, dream fulfilment, etc.) or the product proposition of each mutual fund, Motilal Oswal’s AMC has focused on communicating a fund investing philosophy hence moving the focus of communication from product to thematic – ‘Buy Right Sit Tight’.”

He further said, “This is the first time we are advertising our equity mutual funds. Being a relatively late entrant in this space we are a challenger brand. The objective of the current campaign is to aggressively build awareness for Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund and get it into the consideration set of people who are currently looking at investing in mutual funds. This is done by presenting a scenario on how mutual funds are traditionally presented with savvy investors asking ‘Sirf ek sawaal. Why not Motilal Oswal?’. It then asks people to visit the Motilal Oswal website to understand why they should invest in our Mutual Fund.”

As far as creating differentiation for Motilal Oswal’s MF in a space that has some strong players is concerned, Chhabra said, “As a mutual fund, we have been unique from different angles. While other AMCs have a plethora of funds, MOAMC has only four. Unlike other MFs that have debt and equity, we focus primarily on equity mutual funds. All our funds are ‘No Load’ funds and have low churn. All our mutual funds have focused portfolios restricted to 20-25 stocks. And of course, we are the only mutual fund to have a unique investing philosophy (Buy Right Sit Tight) and a proprietary stock picking process (QGLP). While large mutual funds aim at expanding the market through generically selling the benefits of mutual funds, we aim to talk to focus on existing investors in MFs giving them strong reasons to consider Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund.”

Ramakrishna Desiraju, CEO, Cartwheel Creative Consultancy, the agency behind the campaign, added here, “The brief to the agency was to disrupt the party of the big mutual fund brands by being aggressive and competitive, and thereby get into the consideration set of investors and their influencers.”

He further elaborated, “We decided to be absolutely honest about the fact that Motilal Oswal is unlikely to figure in any list of recommended mutual funds. We, therefore, showcased situations where advisors suggest various names other than ours and the protagonist slyly asks, “Why not Motilal Oswal?” We designed the campaign single-mindedly around this thought and used a single differentiator – MOAMC’s unique investment philosophy of ‘Buy Right Sit Tight’.”

“The Motilal Oswal brand is integral to the campaign line that features across all media, viz., ‘Sirf ek sawaal. Why not Motilal Oswal?’ We used this on TV, web banners, print, and BTL media,” Desiraju added.

shanta@adgully.com