Aimed at creating awareness amongst parents on the need to plan for their children’s future, Axis Mutual Fund initiated unique campaign #DoYouHomeWork. The idea behind the campaign is to create awareness amongst parents about the need to plan investments in order to fulfil their children’s aspirations.
According to study by Axis Mutual Fund, today children have innumerable career options to choose from, which go beyond the conventional options. Not just that, today children have a strong point of view on what they want to pursue, unlike in the past when they were likely to follow their parents’ footsteps. Axis Mutual Fund therefore decided to highlight this fact that let children decide what they want to pursue in life while parents need to be prepared – emotionally as well as financially. So #DoYourHomework became the rallying cry.
Speaking about the campaign, Chandresh Kumar Nigam, MD & CEO, Axis Asset Management Company Ltd. said, “Children today are more aware about different careers, which at times go beyond the conventional choices. Children also have a strong point of view on what they want to do in life, unlike in the past when they were more likely to follow their parent’s footsteps. Our research showed that while parents are quite supportive of their children choosing their careers, more often than not, parents are not fully aware of what their children want to pursue in life. Many parents assume their children will either follow their footsteps or choose a conventional career option”.
Conceptualised by Metal Communications,with #DoYourHomework, Axis MF persuaded parents to do their homework – take the first step in terms of finding out if they are on the same page as their children when it comes to their children’s future and further finding out the costs and how they can plan their finances to meet their children’s aspirations.
Commenting on the campaign, Ambarish Ray, Metal Communications, Director & COO, said, “Gone are the days when you were either a doctor/engineer/CA/lawyer or a complete wastrel. Today, and increasingly more so as we live to see another day, a mind boggling portfolio of careers are possible for kids. If you asked about a sous chef or a deep sea diver in the family a few years back, you would have drawn a blank. Today, our campaign is based on this reality. Parents need to be not just aware of this but also be financially prepared for it. That is the backbone of the campaign and it has been brought out beautifully by the creative team at Metal, led by Gwendoline Pereira.”
The execution
This campaign was executed in two phases across 8 metros. While the Outdoor and Print campaigns ran for about 3 weeks, the digital leg will continue to run for at least a month and even beyond that.
The Experiment
Ray informed that an interesting experiment was initiated with a group of parents and their children. Children were asked to draw a picture of what they would like to become in future while parents were asked to paint what they would like their children to become in future. They were told not to interact with each other during the course of the activity.
A lot of interesting stories emerged from the experiment. At the end of the experiment, parents and children were asked to reveal their ideas. And to everyone’s surprise the pictures were contrasting. Children expressed their eagerness to pursue conventional as well as unconventional careers and their parents saw their children pursuing professions different than what their children articulated. While the video of this experiment was promoted online we also did various activations across India through crosswords and kidzania.
Are you on the same page
As the second leg was the outdoor and print campaign backed by a digital one where parents had been urged to do their homework by finding out if they are on the same page as their children about their future.
Marketing strategy
According to Ray, starting point was to change the conversation. With compelling communication in place, it was important to also prod parents to find out current and future education costs and subsequently plan their investments.
To enable all of the above, Axis Mutual Fund put together a couple of interesting calculators such as current and future education costs across various disciplines and countries and SIP calculator which gives an idea of how much one needs to invest in order to meet the future costs. This three-step process was used by financial advisors as well to talk to prospects.
The reception
Ray informed that apart from persuading parents to start their investment planning early for their children’s future, there also was a subtle social message in the campaign that of telling parents that let the children decide what they want to do in future.
“As far as the core objective is concerned, we wanted parents to be aware of the fact that education costs are rising and that the future costs will be even high. Therefore driving home the importance of planning investments at an early stage”, added Ray.
He further mentioned that the campaign thought will indeed help in carrying forward the goals planning thought that Axis Mutual Fund has propagated. Add to the fact that the brand is talking the language of the consumer vs using jargons and industry terms; it will augur well for the brand in terms of saliency and brand recall.
“Our future plan is to continue our efforts to educate investors on planning for various life goals and importance of investing in mutual funds,” concluded Ray.
