Chasing Manhattan

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A goatee-sporting man chips in with "Let's call him Ghatotkach." "Somebody slap him," protests a woman. Time for one more suggestion: Virat. The baby has had enough. He decides to name himself.

The murmurs in the room are quietened by the child's voice tweeting, "Dinku". As everybody turns stunned glances towards the infant, the baby hammers the point home: Dinku, Dinku, Dinku....

The tagline flashes across the screen: You decide. This is a 40-second television commercial for Standard Chartered Bank's new lifestyle credit card, Manhattan, which was launched in end-August.

"We wanted to capture the essence that the product was so un-cardlike and how the power shifted to consumers," says Thomas Xavier, national creative director, Orchard (the agency behind the campaign).

India is the third country to launch the card, nearly two years after it was introduced in Hong Kong and Singapore. The company claims that the credit card has many firsts to offer to the Indian market.

For instance, the card, which is offered to consumers earning more than Rs 2 lakh a year, will never charge an annual fee. Then, it provides a customised pricing of interest rates for customers "" depending on customer spending and payment patterns, interest rates can range from 1.99 per cent to 2.49 per cent a month.

It also provides a choice of lifestyle experiences from travel and adventure, wining and dining, health and fitness to entertainment depending on customers' preferences.

Srinivasan Shyam, general manager and head, credit cards and personal loans, Standard Chartered, says that over $ 2 million (nearly Rs 10 crore) will be spent on the launch campaign. Apart from TV, print and outdoor, the campaign will also break in below-the-line media like the Internet, SMS and so on.

Why is StanChart investing so much in Manhattan? A look at how the credit card industry has been shaping up in India will explain why. From six million cards in 2002, the industry has grown to touch 10 million this year. And management consultancy McKinsey estimates that by 2010, the Indian market will have 35 million credit cards.

But most of the plastic power has gone to ICICI Bank, which entered the credit card business just four years ago. At present, over 25 lakh plastic cards carry its name.

That's been a setback of sorts for StanChart, which entered the business in India as far back as the early 1990s, and is now at third place with 16 lakh card holders (First mover Citibank has about 24 lakh credit card holders).

Of course, absolute numbers matter little in the credit card business "" it's the value of the transactions that are critical.

And StanChart's profitability in credit card operations, which is in the range of Rs 100 crore to Rs 150 crore, is much better than that of the Indian private banks.

That's because the acquisition cost of a credit card customer is substantial "" about Rs 750 to Rs 800. So, if StanChart has to acquire one million customers to score higher than ICICI Bank, it would have to shell out Rs 75 crore to Rs 80 crore.

That is why Standard Chartered is not banking on just numbers even for its Manhattan card. StanChart is hoping to add a meagre one lakh customers in the first year of operations of Manhattan (compare this with ICICI Bank, which adds that number to its account every month). The difference will be in the character of the user base "" the Manhattan card is targeted at an upwardly mobile, English speaking premium category, aged between 25 and 35. The high spenders, in fact.

Naturally then, the communication also had to be such that it appealed to younger audiences. "Manhattan is targeted at a younger audience in a more irreverent manner," agrees Shyam.

Orchard Managing Director Nitish Mukherjee says creating an "irreverant" communication wasn't easy. "It was tough to communicate a difference in a market swamped with cards," he adds.

That's where the empowerment angle came in. The tagline "You decide" was based on research that customers are not the decision makers in the credit card business (interest rates and loyalty points are generally decided by the card company, depending on the customer's credit worthiness).

So the Manhattan card communication emphasises that its customers can make decisions about their transactions.

That's somewhat different from the campaigns for the card in other countries. For instance, the ads in Singapore carried the line "Manhattan belongs to me" and the campaign was centred on the choices among credit cards.

In India, while the TV ads emphasise empowerment, the print campaigns will toe the international line of articulating differences and comparisons will be brought out.

The hoardings will also stick to the You Decide theme. Apart from that, StanChart is planning promotions in restaurants and so on. Xavier points out that last month onwards, the global communication has also shifted to the "You Decide" theme.

But is the Manhattan card really all that different? ICICI Bank, for one, has launched its Easy Deposit Card on similar lines. Targeted at fixed deposit holders of ICICI Bank, the card offers a revolving credit facility at 0.99 per cent a month.

Card holders need not pay the fuel surcharge at select petrol pumps, apart from a waiver on cash access fee at ICICI Bank ATMs, insurance and travel benefits. So, is the Manhattan experience just a tall claim? You decide.