Summary
Unbelievable rates @ Kotak Home Loans Despite being India's 2nd most valued private bank, Kotak's name had low awareness and interest in the housing finance market. To tackle this Kotak revisited its home loan rates and developed the ‘unbelievably low rates' proposition and optimised relevant data points to target specific cities and segments. Our campaign established Kotak as a trusted, low-rate Home Loan provider in the minds of customers across the country.
Challenge
Despite being India's 2nd most valued private bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank's name stood low in awareness in India's $20 trillion Housing Finance market until September 2020 – the key reasons being higher interest rates in a price sensitive market, existing legacy players, and lack of any mass awareness campaigns around the product to establish the brand as a dependable Home Loan provider. A market recovering from the business drop during Covid-19 and a financial moratorium allowed by the Govt. provided a unique window for Kotak Mahindra. Choosing a Home Loan is purely a functional decision for Indians with over 70% of customers choosing their Home Loan provider purely based on interest rates. Furthermore, brand loyalty runs low in the category – 65% customers willing to shift their current Home Loans if a better option/rate is presented.
Objective
In light of transitory financial factors during the pandemic, such as the lending side of the business taking a big hit with rock-bottom disbursements and a moratorium announced by the Govt. of India, the business needed a hero product to rise above and lift sales. The campaign set out to achieve the following key objectives: 1) To surprise the market by establishing Home Loan rates as low as 6.75%* p.a. coming from Kotak 2) To drive month on month sales growth up by at least 20% 3) To drive awareness and consideration for Kotak as a Home Loan provider 4) Establish Kotak as a major player in the Home Loan market across the country.
Strategy
The product was never advertised on a large scale before, this campaign aimed to establish Kotak Mahindra as a key player in the Home loan category. High realty prices mean that the customers already feel that they have to ‘bear the brunt' of an expensive home – this leads to the customer being more sensitive towards high price rates, when it came to the housing finance partner they chose. A Home loan therefore is purely a functional decision (means to an end) for the customer in order to purchase and build a home. Furthermore, choosing the ‘ideal' home loan product among many, is often a confusing and a strenuous task. The communication, therefore, needed to be simple, and straightforward; ensuring good consumer recall of the primary brand message – Kotak's low Home loan rate. Since we identified that the key decision making factor is the rate of interest of the home loan; the core theme of the campaign was centred around the "unbelievability of the rate". This further flowed to various sub-thoughts across channels.
Data
The need for bigger homes swiftly became a priority for many, as the entire family now had to not just live, but operate from their home, for context, the average Indian family size is 4.3 members. The general complaints of not enough space (for pets, childhood activities, etc.) and bad and noisy homes being a problem: with a 78% increase in people searching online for terms such as, "how to create space at home?", "running out of space at home", "how to maximise space in a small home?" and an 87% increase in search for "cost of house in ___"- specific to various location from 2019 to 2020. An optimisation matrix was developed basis cost of media, Home Loan heavy markets for Kotak, impact of simple messaging, scope of longer term engagement and customer affinity for the medium considering Covid-19. This helped Kotak identify the Top 8 metro cities and 13 non-metro (tier-2) cities were selected as target markets that showed the most promise for the campaign.
Solution
Based on the core thought of "un-believability of such low rate", the 500+ outdoor sites had 9 unique variants simple lines that read ‘Home Loans at 6.75%* p.a. For Real.', ‘Home Loans at 6.75%* p.a. Pinch yourself.' etc. India being host to a wide variety of languages and cultures, these variants were translated to 8 regional languages to bring home the point of such a low rate being a reality. This central theme was tweaked to extend to radio and social media and experiential platforms. 2 radio spots were created in 8 languages– sympathising with the need for bigger and new homes in the post Covid-19 new normal era where managing offices, schools, etc. were all to be done from inside the homes. 3 digital films were also shot on the same theme especially for social media awareness campaign under #ComeHomeWithKotak. Digital media placements were also heavily used with Kotak took up branding space on news platforms (like Inshorts), YouTube, Facebook, Google Display Network, Daily Hunt, OTT Content platforms (Disney Hotstar), and portals where we could find most of our TG – housing aggregators like housing.com, etc. To further amplify the digital buzz, #CarnivalOfReasons was also launched. This Insta-led campaign had fun-filled activities that engaged the audience through GIFs, puzzles and interactive posts. Additionally, an AR filter was released that listed fun and quirky reasons for moving into a new house. Touchpoint Marketing was also executed in 950+ branches, visibility via ATMs, roadshows, website banners, emailers, SMS, push notifications, etc.
Results
Kotak generated over 700 Mn ad impressions across media with its campaign. PR/ earned media came in from all media houses in the country, placing Kotak Home Loans at the top of the table with lowest Home Loan rates in mainstream as well as regional media, in both online and offline publications. The social media campaign across platforms like Facebook and Instagram garnered ~20 million impressions and engaged ~5 million viewers. Google searches for Kotak Home Loans also went up by 175% in a month and leads from the website saw a 224% jump. Most importantly, while the business objective was a 20% jump in monthly sales (disbursement), Kotak monthly sales grew by 300% as on Feb'21. Open market research as well as a survey with existing customers revealed the true impact of the campaign:- Open Market: •Unaided recall/ Spontaneous awareness – Kotak went from Rank 5 to Rank 1, leaving behind every big Home Loan player known in the country •Aided recall – Moved from Rank 6 to Rank 2 •Consideration – Kotak moved from Rank 7 to Rank 2 with this span of 5 months Existing Customers: •91.7% of Kotak bank customers said they knew about Kotak Home Loans, compared to 79.3% earlier •In the list of considered players for a Home Loan, Kotak came at Rank 1 compared to Rank 3 in earlier research
