NEW DELHI: The economy has been hit by Covid2019 due to which not only has spending declined but the loan market also took a hit. Banking on this, The Muthoot Group’s recent campaign ‘Gold Loan is Good’, featuring Amitabh Bachchan, looks at chasing away apprehensions associated with gold loans and encouraging more people to make use of the gold stored in their homes. Surprisingly, it is one of the few brands that chose to focus on OOH.
The Muthoot Group’s general manager- marketing and strategy, Abhinav Iyer says that the primary objective of launching this campaign was to increase the overall gold loan category. “There is over 26,000 tons of gold with Indian households and less than two to three per cent of this is monetised. Hence, there is a huge market opportunity that remains untapped. Secondly, the objective is to dispel the various misplaced apprehensions associated with gold loans that often come to the minds of first-time gold loan takers and finally, but most significantly, to project gold loans as a 'Good Smart Option, as against being the Last Option' for seeking financial credit.”
It is live on television, digital, print, OOH, transit media and select forms of BTL promotions. However, Muthoot Finance went big on OOH though people are mostly still indoors. Executed by Brandscope throughout India, the hoardings are visible across 50 cities on more than 200 sites.
“If you look at it in silos, outdoor may come across as an outlier. It is important to see our OOH investment in conjunction with our overall media mix. Our OOH investment is part of our larger integrated marketing campaign for Gold Loan is Good. It is one of the five to six mediums handpicked to launch our new advocacy-based communication. In actual terms, the investment is substantial considering current times, but from a percentage share to overall media investment perspective; it is modest. Having said that, our digital investments, too, have grown notably post-Covid2019 to cater to the rising digital media consumption trends,” says Iyer.
“Besides traditional OOH, we have also included a few DOOH sites and some interesting innovations. Outdoor is a great recall medium and with phased unlocking measures, people have started stepping out and since we received some great deals, we chose to leverage this medium as well, to the maximum possible extent,” he adds.
The company has also launched a mega radio campaign called ‘Muthoot Finance Sunheri Soch’ exclusively on Red FM. Sunheri Soch is a series of inspiring, real-life stories of courage, hope and positivity. Narrated by Bachchan, these are stories of common men and women who took a gold loan from Muthoot to achieve their dreams and progressed in life. An especially made Sunheri Soch anthem has also been launched with Bachchan and RedFM’s top RJs saluting the courage of successful people who have achieved their dreams in highly challenging circumstances.
Iyer claims that since the time of the pandemic a number of financial services players have shifted their focus to gold loans. “Overall, the media landscape is certainly under stress but we have great partners who stitched some good deals thereby helping us get maximum value for our investments,” he shares.
