Will Sebi's rebranding itself work?
Sebi is rebranding itself as an investor-friendly regulator through a concerted media campaign.
Image makeover: Stills from Sebi's ad campaign on TV
A branding bug seems to have bitten the country's financial regulators. Repackaging and rebranding are the latest mantras they are chanting to get closer to the common man.
In recent times, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) have both gone all out to market themselves through extensive multimedia campaigns, moving well beyond the usual investor education campaigns they had earlier limited themselves to.
The latest to join the brandwagon is stock market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). It is taking a shot at turning itself into a mass brand name, shedding its image of a distant and obscure regulator.
The RBI made its first attempt to reach out to the aam aadmi through its landmark 2010 multimedia campaign. It had roped in IBD - a subsidiary of advertising agency Percept-Hakuhodo - for the campaign. The same year, IRDA roped in the agency Adfactors Advertising.
For its "har investor ki taqat" campaign, Sebi has turned to Ogilvy & Mather.
THE MESSAGE
If the RBI campaign had Governor D. Subbarao taking centre stage, the Sebi one has the common man. It advocates reaching out to Sebi for redressal of investor grievances through SCORES (Sebi Complaints Redress System), which enables investors to lodge and follow up complaints online. The message of Sebi is not new, but the advertisments with their underlying humour are creating recall value.
B. Ramanathan, Vice President, Ogilvy & Mather, explains that one of the key challenges from the very start of the process was to "simplify" effectively, given the complexity of the financial markets. His team had to make the communication clear, quick, witty and easy to understand.
"We started with consumer work, delved into investor behaviour and arrived at insights that served as the basis for the campaign. Along the way, we interacted extensively with specialist teams at Sebi to gain in-depth understanding of investors and their behaviour," he says.
Sebi wants to reach out to as many people as possible in the target audience and hence the campaign has adopted a multipronged approach using TV, radio and print in 13 languages.
"Bodies such as Sebi and RBI are behemoths which enjoy a rather B2B (business to business) imagery with most people. It is important for these bodies to enjoy a more widespread B2C (business to customer) imagery as well. At the end of the day, these bodies cater to the end individual," says brand-strategy specialist Harish Bijoor.
Such campaigns by regulators are all set to grow. Sebi, in particular, plans similar multimedia campaigns in future.
In recent times, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) have both gone all out to market themselves through extensive multimedia campaigns, moving well beyond the usual investor education campaigns they had earlier limited themselves to.
The latest to join the brandwagon is stock market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). It is taking a shot at turning itself into a mass brand name, shedding its image of a distant and obscure regulator.
The RBI made its first attempt to reach out to the aam aadmi through its landmark 2010 multimedia campaign. It had roped in IBD - a subsidiary of advertising agency Percept-Hakuhodo - for the campaign. The same year, IRDA roped in the agency Adfactors Advertising.
For its "har investor ki taqat" campaign, Sebi has turned to Ogilvy & Mather.
THE MESSAGE
OF SEBI IS NOT NEW, BUT THE EXECUTION AND THE UNDERLYING HUMOUR IN THE AD CAMPAIGN ARE CREATING RECALL VALUE.
B. Ramanathan, Vice President, Ogilvy & Mather, explains that one of the key challenges from the very start of the process was to "simplify" effectively, given the complexity of the financial markets. His team had to make the communication clear, quick, witty and easy to understand.
"We started with consumer work, delved into investor behaviour and arrived at insights that served as the basis for the campaign. Along the way, we interacted extensively with specialist teams at Sebi to gain in-depth understanding of investors and their behaviour," he says.
Sebi wants to reach out to as many people as possible in the target audience and hence the campaign has adopted a multipronged approach using TV, radio and print in 13 languages.
"Bodies such as Sebi and RBI are behemoths which enjoy a rather B2B (business to business) imagery with most people. It is important for these bodies to enjoy a more widespread B2C (business to customer) imagery as well. At the end of the day, these bodies cater to the end individual," says brand-strategy specialist Harish Bijoor.
Such campaigns by regulators are all set to grow. Sebi, in particular, plans similar multimedia campaigns in future.
