YES BANK, which has turned six, is ready with its first advertising campaign targeted at retail customers. The bank had so far concentrated on corporate clients. It is now mounting a full-fledged campaign to connect emotionally with individual consumers and SME clients, as part of its next leg of growth titled YES BANK 2.0.
The campaign plays on the impact the word ‘yes’ has in the lives of people. Three versions featuring two young entrepreneurs, an expectant suitor and a young girl wanting to adopt a puppy reiterate the joy and relief that an affirmative reply brings them. The ads are tied up at the end with the voiceover reminding how a ‘yes’ can change our lives and then takes viewers through the host of services that the bank offers.
YES BANK Managing Director & CEO Rana Kapoor says: “Yes is perhaps the most spoken word in any diction. It is about appreciation, affirmation, which is what our customer experience proposition is.” YES BANK has a budget of Rs 10 crore for the ad campaign that will also run on print and online. The ads have been designed by Triton, Delhi, and filmed by OmSai Productions.
The rush into the retail segment makes sense. It will give India’s youngest bank access to low-cost savings account deposits. At the moment, YES BANK has over 1,000 small and medium enterprises and 200,000 individual amongst its customers. It has put up 150 branches across 123 cities and over 200 ATMs across India to complement the brand’s visibility. The bank targets 750 branches by 2015, five times the size in five years. Kapoor says, “We are at an inflexion point in the bank’s life-cycle. It is a critical size that we have reached and we would like to gravitate towards a more balanced business now which includes more retail consumers.”
Individuals with an income of over Rs 5 lakh per annum in the metros and Rs 3 lakh per annum in smaller cities are on the bank’s radar for now. It is eyeing conversions in these markets rather than initiating consumers into banking by plugging the gaps in servicing.
Will the campaign be successful? “The name of the bank itself signifies proactiveness and is clutter-breaking. The campaign seems to play on this aspect of the bank’s brand. Even with banking, there is always a concern of proposals being approved, of loans being approved and so on. So, reiterating the ‘Yes’ in YES BANK should work,” says Jagdeep Kapoor, chairman, Samsika Marketing Consultants.
Rivals — private banks as well as state-owned banks — have for several years now run campaigns targeted on the retail customers. Most of these campaigns, supported by very large budgets, have played on the theme of relationship management. The latest to join the bandwagon is ICICI Bank. The state-owned banks have followed the campaigns with technology upgrade and branch refurbishment. The financial meltdown that started in September 2008 has reinforced the brand equity of state-owned banks — depositors in large numbers have shifted to them since then. In this scenario, YES BANK’s campaign faces a tough challenge.