Ankit Ajmera
Advertising

UTI Mutual Fund gets younger

The company now plans to extend its target group to young professionals in the age group of 25-35 years from 40-plus professionals, which was its core consumer group earlier

UTI Mutual Fund has just got younger. It’s now expanded its target group and is trying to reach out to 25-plus professionals. Till recently, the company focused mainly on 40-plus executives. The company is now trying for a complete image overhaul.

Explains Jaideep Bhattacharya, chief marketing officer, UTI Mutual Fund, “There is a growing need to address the younger earning audience within the country. As is known, an estimated 61 per cent of the people in the country today are below the age of 30 years. This in itself accounts for a huge potential market which can be tapped for our company.”

UTI Mutual Fund gets younger
Besides extending its TG, UTI Mutual Fund is now trying to promote itself as a brand. In the past, the company’s campaigns centred on advertising its various products and schemes.

Bhattacharya is quick to add that UTI Mutual Fund has earned the reputation of being a trusted brand, but only among older consumers. The recent initiative is to ensure that the strength of the brand is now extended to young consumers and to tap the investing potential among this set of consumers. He clarifies that the brand by no means lacks value.

UTI Mutual Fund gets younger
Jaideep Bhattacharya
The latest television commercial, which has been created by Prathamesh Ghate, creative director, Leo Financial, features a guy walking on the road looking at a gleaming blue imported car. To his surprise, the owner hands over the keys to him, saying ‘Rakh lo (Keep it)’. The guy reaches his office and finds his boss giving him an airline ticket for a three-month holiday in Switzerland. Dumbstruck, he accepts it. In the next shot, he is with his date in a restaurant. The cheque exceeds the amount he is carrying in his pocket, but a fat, rich man comes to his rescue, saying he will pay his bill.

After every changing shot, a voice says musically, ‘Kintu, aapke saath aisa na hoga, no-no.’ The commercial ends with the voiceover saying, ‘Isiliye aapko ameer banna hoga, apne dum pe. Invest keejiye UTI Mutual Fund mein. The punch line states – ‘UTI Mutual Fund. Let’s Plan to Get Rich’.

UTI Mutual Fund gets younger
Prathamesh Ghate
Ghate elucidates that the mandate for the agency was to address the youth and make them aware of the benefits of investing in UTI Mutual Fund.

The insight was that young professionals in the age group of 25-35 years are in a hurry to earn everything very fast. But in reality, it’s a tough road, and one needs to plan strategically to reach the mark. Hence the punch line: ‘Let’s plan to get rich’.

To reach out to these young consumers, the campaign was launched simultaneously with ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati 3’ (‘KBC3’) on January 22.

Bhattacharya says that ‘KBC’ is all about knowledge and making money. It has an aspirational value attached to it. Besides, ‘KBC’ has a humungous reach throughout the country and fits very well with the mutual fund theme.

Along with the television commercial and print and outdoor advertising, the company will also promote the brand, UTI Mutual Fund, through radio, SMS, virals, Internet advertising and other innovative activities.

In fact, the company has plans to launch viral marketing initiatives to create interest around the television commercial. The virals will show people in similar, but a bit wilder, situations than the guy in the commercial. And this will be done without mentioning the UTI Mutual Fund brand. This is just to make the consumer connect with the commercial.

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