Mutual fund advertisements are back on our screens. In the last one month, you may have come across educational campaigns of different fund houses. HDFC, ICICI Prudential and AMFI are currently running commercials on TV to promote different investment concepts.
While ICICI Pru’s campaign aims to help people choose the right SIP amount, HDFC’s campaign shows the advantages of SIP and long term investments through a series of four advertisements. AMFI is running a campaign which talks about the benefits of diversification in mutual funds.
Let’s look at what the HDFC and ICICI Pru campaigns try to convey. HDFC’s campaign is narrated through a girl Minu who features in all the four commercials. The SIP commercial starts with Minu who is on her way home from school on her bicycle when she comes across a caged parrot at a neighbor’s window. In the hope that the parrot would repeat her words, she says ‘Minu is a rock star’ but to no avail. Minu repeats the same sentence ‘Minu is a rockstar’ each time she passes through the neighbor’s house.
After repeatedly saying ‘Minu is a rockstar’ for four days, Minu is shown walking along with her school friends. Minu and her friends stop to see the parrot and Minu nudges the parrot to repeat her words. To her surprise, the parrot says Minu is a rockstar in front of her friends, who are quite impressed and start patting her back. The ad ends with a voice over which says that regular investing in mutual funds can reap big returns in the long run.
The other advertisement convey the benefits of investing for the long term and the benefits of starting early. The third advertisement shows Minu trying to drape her mom’s saree. When caught by her mother, Minu tells her mom that she can wear a saree on her own. Her mom then shows her cupboard mirror and Minu realizes that she has messed up. The commercial ends with a message which says that some things should be left to experts and people should consult their financial advisors before investing.
The campaign is part of HDFC MF’s investor education initiative.
Similarly, ICICI Prudential’s advertisement, which went on air in July, aims to help people choose the right SIP amount. The ad starts with a young girl with a glass of milk in her hand sitting with her family – her parents, her brother and her uncle. She asks her mom that how many glasses of milk kids should drink every day, to which her mom answers two glasses. She asks her dad how much time kids should study every day and her dad answers two hours. The father’s elder brother asks him how much should he be investing through SIP for the girl’s education, to which he has no answer. When the girl looks at her father’s blank face, he asks her to drink milk. Finally the uncle hands over an ICICI Pru MF pamphlet and asks him to study it.
Abhijit Shah, Head of Marketing, Digital & Customer Experience, ICICI Pru Mutual Fund says “A lot of people know that SIP is the best way to invest. They also know that anytime is a good time to invest through SIPs. However, they don’t know how much to invest in SIPs. To address this issue, our advertisement says that a family should invest based on their goals – education, marriage or buying house.”
ICICI Pru is planning to take this campaign to the digital media.
Unlike HDFC and ICICI Pru, IDFC has adopted the digital route only. After making a short film called Bachat Nivesh way back in 2010, IDFC has come out with a new series of four videos which demystify investment myths. IDFC MF’s latest video starts with a young couple watching TV when drops of water start leak from their ceiling. Ignoring the leakage, the husband suggests wife that they should buy a new TV. Slowly, the leakage spreads to other walls of the house and they try to cover the wall buying more stuff instead of repairing the leakage. When the guy is eating food, the ceiling breaks and the debris fells on his head. The video ends with a message – don’t delay investing, start today.
“We covered different concepts through four videos which we promoted through You Tube. In one of the videos, we showed how to save tax through ELSS and in the latest video we have urged people to start investing early,” says Kalpen Parekh, CEO, IDFC Mutual Fund.
Under its IAP, Axis MF too has produced seven videos which busts different myths associated with equity investments. The fund house asked the most common questions pertaining to equity investments to a few people and captured their responses in these videos. Each video also has infographics which establish the facts and bust myths.
