Raghav Iyengar, Executive Vice President & Head- Retail & Institutional Business, ICICI Prudential AMC talks to Cafemutual about the investor awareness initiatives undertaken by his fund house.
How are you executing the SEBI mandated Investor Awareness activities - what are the key activities undertaken by you so far under Investor Awareness Program (IAP)?
While a majority of Indian retail investors are reasonably good at saving money or allocating towards physical assets like real estate or gold, they are still bereft of the long term wealth creation that investing in financial assets could offer. Lack of financial literacy hinders them from taking sound investment decisions. Thus, we believe that creating investor awareness is a crucial component of channelizing investments into mutual funds. To ensure that investors are well-equipped with the knowledge required to invest correctly, we have built a comprehensive investor awareness program (IAP) with several effective tools being executed under it.
Investor awareness camps
With support from an active panel of prominent and professional trainers, and/or by tie-ups with leading media houses the company is regularly conducting awareness camps. The content is structured based on the target audience. For instance, in smaller cities and towns, the content is elementary in nature and the company prefers to deliver these workshops in local languages whereas in case of the top 15 cities, the content could include technical aspects as well. Through the existing branch network, several training programs were held in the branch premises as well as external venues involving industry experts during the entire year. Recently, we conducted investor awareness camps for army personnel.
These camps demystify the world of investments including mutual funds and address specific queries raised by investors. The AMC has conducted till date 814 such programs for the financial year 14-15 and nearly 30,000 investors have been covered through these camps. For instance, on-ground activation programs were conducted in cities of Saharanpur (UP), Muzaffarpur (Bihar), Navsari, Bhuj, & Porbandar (Gujarat) for 15 days. The activation program conducted was an educational skit for the audiences about mutual funds (MFs), advantages of investing in MFs, how to invest in MFs etc.
Media campaigns
The AMC has used media platforms to launch simple but effective awareness campaigns. The mediums used to reach out to the target audience were print, radio, television and outdoor programs. For instance, this year we had some of the following campaigns:
- The print campaign was carried out in leading dailies and magazines across India through insertions where the concepts of ELSS, SIP’s as well as concept of debt were elaborated and simplified for the investors.
- The outdoor campaign was launched in metro cities along with key sites in adopted & tier 2 cities. A total of 127 sites (including hoardings & bus shelters) across high traffic areas were bought for a period of 21 days in metros & 30 days in adopted cities respectively.
- The radio campaign ran for 14 days in metro cities (FM channels – 53 spots/day) & the adopted cities (All India Radio – 16 spots/day)
Leveraging the digital platform
• Social Media
The company has been extensively engaging the youth through social media platforms. There are regular posts on the Facebook page where investment concepts are explained in simple language, articles on investments and best practices are shared. We share information on a weekly basis under categories like our ‘Learning Series’, ‘Financial Friday’ & ‘Puzzles’, all aimed at helping investors understand investments better.
Various online campaigns have been rolled out, the most recent being the ‘Right SIP Amount’ campaign; which encourages investors to plan and invest according to their needs and goals. We also actively promote the use of calculators like the ‘Right SIP Calculator’ on our Facebook page, which encourages investors to adopt a more holistic approach towards planning for their goals.
• Dedicated segment on website (www.icicipruamc.com/investcorrectly)
The AMC has created an ‘Invest Correctly’ section on website dedicated to investor education which helps investors find answers to their investment queries. It has many sub-sections covering a wide range of topics such as basics of mutual funds, understanding debt funds etc.
‘FinAware’ focuses on demystifying financial concepts and the ‘info-graphic’ section serves as a simple visual guide to understand the concepts of mutual funds. We have created easy to understand educational videos to help explain various mutual fund and investment related concepts - for example, videos on topics like invest the ‘Right SIP Amount’, ‘Value Investing’, ‘Invest in Volatile Markets’ etc. have been created and hosted on the YouTube Brand Channel and our website. These videos and info-graphics are available in multiple languages as well.
• The company also uses the direct mailers route to communicate with existing and prospective investors on simple information on concepts that may help them make informed investment decisions. Our effort will be to maintain this level of engagement with the investors and continue to serve relevant content to them.
What are the key messages/subjects being covered? Why do you think these messages/subjects deserved priority?
The investor awareness and education campaigns are branded as ‘Invest Correctly’. The key intent of these initiatives is to empower investors to make informed and knowledge-based decisions. These campaigns help investors understand the basics of mutual fund investing in terms of type of mutual funds, benefits of mutual funds, and learning how to fulfil their financial goals using the mutual fund route.
For instance, some of the key messages of our investor initiatives have been on subjects like benefits of early investing, importance of financial planning, knowing the right SIP amount when investing. These messages are the very foundation of financial education which is a life skill, and could bring about a positive behavioural change amongst individuals when it comes to investing.
Who are you targeting? Why?
The investor awareness programs are targeted towards our existing investors as well as prospective investors in order to guide them towards better investment decisions. Geographically, we target investors both the T-15 locations as well as B-15 locations to spread awareness on investing and deepen the foothold of mutual funds across the rural landscape.
Which geographies/cities are you targeting through IAP and why?
All branches of ICICI Prudential MF endeavour to do one ground level interaction per month, Also, our mass media campaigns cater to all of India.
While as per the SEBI Initiative of District Adoption for spreading Financial Literacy and increasing awareness of mutual funds, the AMC has adopted 10 Districts -Gandhinagar, Kutch, Navsari and Porbander (All Gujarat), Saharanpur (UP), Muzzafarpur (Bihar), Keonjhar (Barbil) and Cuttack (Both Orissa), Purba Mednipore (West Bengal) and Dibrugarh (Assam). Our endeavor is to reach out to investors across the country and ensure maximum financial awareness.
Which route you have chosen for IAP (mass media or ground level)? Why you have decided to choose this route for IAP?
ICICI Prudential has adopted various mediums – print, outdoor, digital, investor camps - to grow investor awareness and education. A balance between mass media and ground level interaction has ensured that our concerted efforts reach maximum number of investors.
How has been the response from investors?
The response from investors has been very positive as we have witnessed a significant increase in the number of attendees in our camps. We have also witnessed an improving trend while engaging with investors on the social media platform, with increasing popularity of this medium.
Cafemutual will run a series of interviews to understand the various initiatives undertaken by AMCs as a part of their IAP.
