What Aparna Mahesh teaches about privacy-first marketing

Brand continuity planning is absolutely critical. As brand custodians, it's incumbent upon us to be extremely brutal about figuring out what parts of our brands will be relevant and won't be relevant. Hi Apanna, welcome to HT Brand Studio Live. To start off the discussion today, the pandemic has affected different aspects of our lives and including our financial behavior. So how do you think it will change even further after the lockdown is lifted? Can you give us a few instances?

So if you ask me, I think the biggest casualty or one of the biggest casualties of this entire COVID crisis is going to be face-to-face interactions, right? I think it has forced people today to rethink and drastically minimize all face-to-face interactions. The world has gone contactless pretty much for everything from communication to commerce. So it's fairly clear that the same is going to happen for financial services, you know, whether it's taking a loan or getting a credit card in the post-COVID world.

What this also means is that customers are going to shy away from what is today a largely offline process of onboarding, right? Which is done either through physical meetings, wet signatures, submission of photocopied documents. So I think all of that is going to need a lot of overhauling, if you will. And I think the regulatory framework in India is definitely loosening up to allow banks to onboard customers in a completely digital manner.

Secondly, I think it's important that I state that digital demand for financial products was already touching new highs even before, you know, in the months leading up to COVID-19. So in the post-COVID scenario, what we're hearing from a lot of our BFSI partners is that offline demand is likely to be a bit muted, but digital demand, as in, you know, where the products can be delivered paperlessly to a customer's phone, will bounce back fast and very strong. So talking about, you know, customer engagement and interaction,

what has changed today in the way Bank Bazaar interacts with its customers? How are you maintaining customer loyalty and trust? Because these are difficult times, right? And it's important to, you know, talk to the customer in the right way so that, you know, they don't feel over them. How are you doing that? When it comes to Bank Bazaar, I would say fundamentally, nothing much has changed in the sense that Bank Bazaar is a brand that has largely been built organically and content marketing has been the foundation of all our marketing efforts.

That continues, in fact, at a much higher level today. What we've taken for ourselves during this period, right? I think I should also sort of prefix that by saying when it comes to financial services, consumers have a ton of questions. You know, even the most confident customers across other industries will tend to feel slightly uncertain when it comes to making personal finance related decisions. And in times like this, that is only amplified much further.

So what we are doing as Brand Bazaar right now is we want to help our customers navigate these uncertain times. And we want to make sure that we are aiding them in making the right decisions about their finance in this situation because, you know, there's a lot of volatility and after one is taking care of one's physical health and things like that, I think the next thing, the next big worry and obsession for everyone is their financial health.

And that is where we want to ensure that we're doing everything we can to help our customers make the right decision. So, you know, given the current scenario and also going forward, you know, promoting digital inclusion is very important. I think you mentioned some of it in the initial discussion that we had. So what is Brand Bazaar doing in that regard? Brand Bazaar is an 11 year old company and our vision from the beginning has been to help people find the right financial products in an instant, secure and paperless manner. That's been our vision.

In light of the pandemic, we would also want to see what we can do to help customers get access to these products in a contactless manner. Some very progressive moves on the regulatory front, such as the RBI approved video KYC or eSign docs, are bound to accelerate the next phase of digital inclusion when it comes to financial services in India. We are working very closely with our partners on various innovations to provide them with solutions so that together, you know, the entire ecosystem is ready for this massive surge in demand for digital finance,

which is bound to come in the in the weeks to follow. So, you know, most marketers are, you know, they are going through a very tough time. They're trying to cope with the pandemic. But if you had to, you know, state some of the do's and don'ts that they, you know, that they must follow during this pandemic, what could they be? If you ask me, I think the first point is brand continuity planning is absolutely critical. As brand custodians, it's incumbent upon us to be extremely brutal about figuring out what parts of our

brands will be relevant and won't be relevant once, you know, once things start to move on and we're out of the lockdown. And we need to very quickly figure out how to pivot or create a strategy based on, you know, whatever it is that we come up with. Adaptability is critical. I think that's what holds true for humans, for professionals, as well as for brands. I think it's important to be very clear on what is the brand's rule during the pandemic, you know, let's say for the next six to eight months and then eventually after.

I think it's very, very important to say this is what we will do now and this is what we will do later. I think a few questions that we need to ask ourselves is, or I think just one question is, at the end of this situation, will our customers come out of this feeling that this brand helped them tied through the crisis in whatever manner, however small, but did the brand help them or not? And I think if the answer is yes, clearly, you know, the brand is doing the right things. When it comes to don'ts, it's very difficult to sort of define anything.

None of these are set in stone. But I think one simple thing that comes from me would be don't overdo it. I personally felt that when this entire situation started in March, there was just, you know, hyperactivity from a lot of brands. I think everyone was trying to make sense of it. I think it's a lot going on right now. And, you know, if we can, if we can't add value, at least let's not add to the noise, because there's just so much that the consumers are working through and deciphering through right now.

So the pandemic is teaching all of us, you know, multiple lessons, but, you know, as a marketing leader, what are some of those lessons that you have learned? And how are you planning to leverage these in the future? So I believe, and it's only been stronger, this belief, if the brand fundamentals are strong, right? The brand values, okay, the customer centricity, and if the brand has invested in building the right delivery mechanism for its customers, I strongly believe the pandemic will

only strengthen the brand, and its bond with the consumers. Customers today, you know, in general, over the, in the recent past, especially have been holding brands to extremely high standards. And I think they will do that even more so during a situation like COVID. So I believe that the age old lessons, you know, that we've, that we've learned and sort of tried to, and imbibed along the way, hold good no matter what. So, you know, be authentic as a brand, very importantly, understand where the

customer is today, and what she needs, you know, in the short term and long term, and deliver consistently, with of course, with superlative experience. So, there is no secret ingredient really, I think it's this recipe that always wins. And I think brands right now just need to keep their heads down, and keep delivering and stay true to their brand values. And I think they will, they will emerge much, much stronger at the end of all of this.