Ashish Morone on brand trust and digital transformation

Ashish welcome to trailblazers hey we're delighted to have you now let's get the ball rolling with this provocative idea there are many many studies out there that will show that the exponential increase in mental health issues amongst teenagers around the world is directly correlated with the rise of social media what do you say to that oh well it's not the first evil that is that a society has seen right there have been many in the past and as we evolve and newer and newer sort of technologies come in play and channels like social media come in play I guess we as a society adapt to it right we evolve we figure out how to make more sense out of it how to control it better right and we have a lot of smoking liquor

television couch potatoes stories have been there across generations right so it's neither good nor bad in your view it's just it's it is what it is right yeah it is what it is and it is all about how we adapt to it how do we ensure there's a balance because it does have good sides to it right and today if you look at a lot of the you know younger population the teenagers as you call they're getting access to a lot more information you know the amount of knowledge that that this platform can provide it also humongous all right so it's just about using it in the right way for all of us to benefit from it right so you're slightly where the kind of National Rifle Association of America is in the sense that it's not

it's not the gun it's that is the person using the gun okay much fair enough but you and I I guess are of a particular vintage where yeah we existed and worked in the pre-digital age and then social media came along was it hard for you personally to get your head rounded Ashish initially yes and yeah it did take me time to get around it as an individual as a marketing person as well and Nikhil you know we'll have you in a minute here but you're a pure digital native who's grown up I mean in your working life digital has always been around do you think fundamentally that it's harder for Millennials and baby boomers to get their heads around this or or is it a language you can acquire no I think it's a

language you can acquire obviously it's with any technology you have to put that additional effort for example my father after initial here it is is now on all the social media platforms because he has also realized that there is a certain use case or need for him to do it obviously he's not as well versed as a digital native but he has figured out his own way of managing that old platform it's a tool I must start following your following your your father I might get an extra follower to my to my very few followers but actually okay so so it is what it is there's some adjustment to it but you know you're helming marketing at a huge financial services business HDFC Bank they're not natural

bedfellows when you think about it you know when I open my Instagram I'm not that interested in bank so how do you put the two together or do you we do we do and like I said it took time for us to adapt it's not only about reaching out to the audience but reaching it out to them in a relevant way right and there's a lot of data available in the digital space and what point of time we have realized that different channels have different roles that they can play for you as a brand so money is complex right managing money is complex and the social media allows us to create a lot of where are you winning which channel which works for you so all of them work for me right when used in the right context for example and I

was coming to the point that beat YouTube or beat insta a lot of informative content works for us we have seen from data that if you do a product pitch on a platform like Facebook that works for you right so there's different sort of objectives that we set in terms of what they will do for the brand you look at moment marketing you look at us making comments on particular events that happen because everybody is talking about it and we as brands also have a point of view which we would like to put through but we are very clear that we will not react and respond to everything that happens there we've identified four to five pillars that we need to add to our brand as attributes and then could events and

moments related to that is where we will present on social media you have to be quite disciplined don't you I mean I saw my social media head yesterday basically recreating a scene from from animal right lots of people are doing it I had it immediately taken down because it really didn't it didn't fit with however popular didn't fit so you have to be you have to be quite disciplined on this but how talk about how those pillars and values inform you know what other brands you associate with or events give us examples of the right things is it sport is it yeah so yeah it is if I say that I am a large Indian brand which today is the seventh largest in the world there's a matter of pride right and and the very

heritage and the trust and the reputation that we've created as a brand says that anything which makes an Indian proud about being an Indian is something I will associate with right so that's one way of looking at it the other pieces wherever there is anything to do with money and there is complexity I step in and try to make it simple right so simplicity patriotism proud the pride of being an Indian is some of the things that we will connect with right well I think that's that's that's that's fascinating a lot of our guests and we'll talk to Nikhil and and G2 on behalf of his clients that that that that's um nationalism let's say with a small n is is an important component but I want to talk a

bit about this um so how you navigate complexity you've got you've got your auntie don't you your your auntie avatar who who helps navigate yeah yeah so that's a very interesting story and you know white what plagues the financial services world and specifically after the digital piece has kicked in is a lot of people are susceptible to frauds right and we said there is a there's a duty that we have in terms of creating awareness educating consumers and ensuring that they don't get defrauded right so we've created our own very social media influencer by the name vigilante and the role that she plays is informs consumers about all the new types of fraud that are coming in the mo of these frauds as to

what will frauds typically do with you to sort of hook you and cheat okay but just to push back side on this vigilante great great great name but vigilante is not real why do I believe someone that's not real so when you say she's not real she's a character she's a human right she is someone who's from the media right but it is what we create around her which creates that credibility so there are two aspects to it one it is brought to you by HDFC Bank which in itself is a trusted and credible name in the industry in the financial services space and then the way we have created content over a period of time gives a lot of confidence I see so yeah it's kind of the author's important

in the sense that if Jasper creates Daffy Duck no one buys it if it's Disney's Daffy Donald Duck people are buying it okay so we've got a sense of the values and then this real thing right that no amount of social media helps you unless you actually are a trusted brand but talk to us a bit Ashish about the kind of yin and yang of physical and digital and how you play that game because I still go into banks there's a funny term which everyone uses very often nowadays called fidgetal right and like an inch yeah yeah but nowadays if you see for us I think it's about how digital can play a role in making the physical interactions of the consumers with the bank smoother and easier right so it's about you know

funnily a lot of people prefer a bank because of their physical presence and you asked him why did they open an account with the bank oh yeah the branch was right next to my home or it was right next to my office after that how many consumers actually end up visiting a branch is very limited right today most of our us do our entire work on either the net platform or the mobile banking platform right for the few who do walk in there's still paperwork are you calling the death of banks physical branches no no like I said the primary reason is the trust in case with someone because I put my hard-earned money there now unless there's a physical entity how do I trust you where do you do I go to right if

for for for for it's a bit like my restaurant world you can be a dark kitchen but if no one actually sees you cook because yeah there's there's a there's a bit of a suspicion very very very and then what we do really here at the branches is we have got all our digital tools available we've trained a branch folks so the interactions with the consumers are paperless smooth and sort of it becomes easier for both from our staff perspective as well as from a consumer perspective I see so digital and social media in that sense is simply enabling the physical the physical and and very much relationship be I mean you know you need a relationship with someone you you you you give your money to in the end right we

don't really have enough time as she used to cover all of this but let me ask with a couple of personal things does your own personal social media brand matter to you it does how many followers have you got on LinkedIn LinkedIn a thousand pretty good I think I've got I've got LinkedIn linked LinkedIn envy and in a word before we wrap it up you crystal ball gazing do you see certain social media channels Facebook any of them do you see them coming to an end yeah very much I think all of us know what or cut right and people move down to Facebook as we speak we've heard that the numbers for Facebook are dwindling and insta is becoming the de facto sort of platform to go to nowadays right so yes each of the

platforms will come will go will evolve so I do not see any one platform being existing for all for a very long period of time well and if if if mr. Zuckerberg didn't also in Instagram I'd be telling him to take your money and put it in an HGF C but I don't think he's tomorrow's hard luck story Ashish you've been a fantastic guest we've only scratched the surface thank you for coming on thank you so much thank you