Publicis India’s latest campaign for HDFC Mutual Funds highlights the how and why of investing

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Parrot.jpgThe penetration of Mutual Funds in the country is very low and one of the biggest reasons for that is the low awareness of the products and the benefits of investing in them. The basic concepts of making your investments work remains the same over decades: remain invested, start early and trust the expert. With the objective of demystifying mutual fund investment, Publicis leverages storytelling to achieve their goal in a very simple yet profound manner. The creative shop has crafted a series of TVCs for HDFC Mutual Fund capturing distinctive situations that interestingly inform people about investing in mutual funds through simple life analogies that are seen through the lens of a little girl.

Saree.jpgCRICKET.jpgPool.jpgKulfi.jpgIn one of the commercials, we see a girl wearing a saree confidently. But later we find that she’s made a mess of it as she doesn’t really know how to wear it and looks up to her mother for help thereby highlighting the importance of taking expert advice before investing in mutual funds. In another commercial, we see the girl swimming like a fish while an older lady hesitates to even put one foot in the pool, which goes on to explain the benefit of starting early when it comes to investing in mutual funds. In yet another commercial, we see the same girl greeting an angry old uncle everyday who eventually melts and reciprocates her actions which further goes on to explain the benefit of regular investments. There are a couple more films on the same line that will run on the digital medium.

Commenting on the uniqueness of the campaign, Bobby Pawar, Managing Director, CCO, Publicis South Asia said, “Most people are scared of thinking about investments, because they feel it is way too complicated for them to understand. So the problem was how do you get them to listen and more importantly learn? We turned to a technique that great teachers employ i.e. make the lesson interesting and fun. From here, we drew parallels between the things life teaches us as we are growing up and the principles of investing in mutual funds. To underscore that these lessons are simple, we told stories through the experiences of a little girl.”

Jigar Fernandes, Executive Creative Director, Publicis Ambience added, “It was all about finding those situations that could fit the briefs and yet make for interesting films. They had to be simple everyday observations and not stories created for advertising.”

In a country like , where investing hard earned money in the belief that there is no guarantee of returns, this series of commercials aims to clear the fallacies that people have about mutual funds. Data shows that if basics of investing are followed, there are hardly any investment instruments that beat mutual funds for wealth creation and hence to achieve one’s financial goals. The films highlight the fact that Mutual Funds are nothing to fear given that they work upon the same principles as many things do in one’s daily life if one hopes to gain rewards.

Credits –

Managing Director, South Asia – Publicis Worldwide: Bobby Pawar

Executive Creative Director: Jigar Fernandes

Creatives- Gururaj Rao, Rohan D’souza, Nupur Pai, Aditya Dutta

Chief Operating Officer: Paritosh Srivastava

Vice President: Chandan Jha

Client Services Director: Darrell Fernandes

Associate Account Director: Tejal Turakhia

Account Executive: Jiten Painter

Films Head: Jignesh Maru

Sr. Films Manager: Sagar Bhanushali

Production House: REDARROW PRODUCTIONS

Director: Parikshit Vaidya

Producer: Sanjeev Singh