Campaign India Live Issue Forum: Role of marketing in loosening purse strings

The second Campaign India Live Issue Forum, in association with Open Magazine, was hosted at The Comedy Store, Mumbai, on 12 March 2013.

The theme for the knowledge forum involving senior marketers and marketing communication professionals was 'Role of marketing in loosening purse strings'. The content curated by Campaign India saw marketers being invited to present cases relevant to the topic.

Proceedings kicked off with Ajay Kakar, chief marketing officer, financial services, Aditya Birla Group, presenting the case of Birla Sun Life Insurance and its much talked about use of brand ambassador, cricketer Yuvraj Singh.

Explaining the context, he described the world of financial services as one that held relevance ‘24 x 7, 365 days a year’, but also one laden with a unique set of challenges including that of perceived value.

"The financial services market is a 1.2 billion market. The BFSI sector is the second largest in advertising spends. The challenge for us is the penetration, which is as low as 15 per cent. Compare this to the mobile telecom industry; in 15 years, 15 operators have got a penetration of 70 per cent," said Kakar.

He noted that in insurance alone, there were 24 players in the fray, and traced the route Birla Sun Life Insurance took, as it grew from number 7 to number 5.

Citing the five commandments generally followed by brands using celebrities, he explained how these were re-written by Birla Sun Life, as:

1. Thou shall first look for the idea, the star (celeb endorser) follows
2. Thou shall not ensure he endorses the product
3. Thou shall not show a celeb as a celeb
4. Thou shall not stay with the flavour of the season
5. Thou shall not steer clear of controversies