Manisha Lath Gupta is the Chief Marketing Officer at Axis Bank, India’s third largest private sector bank. Leading bank’s brand strategy and communication across all product verticals, she also drives the digital interfaces of the bank, which includes all websites, internet banking, mobile banking and ATMs. Prior to the current profile, Manisha has worked with Colgate Palmolive for six years essaying two different roles as a Associate Director - Marketing and also heading Consumer Innovation Centre, India. She has started her career with Unilever and served the company for eight years working in different capacities. India Digital Review caught up with Manisha on the sidelines of the ad: tech, New Delhi and discussed Axis Bank’s various initiatives and plans on the digital platform.

How does the digital medium - both internet and mobile figure in Axis Bank’s plans to reach out to consumers? 

In a bank internet and mobile are not just medium for communication they also are a medium for servicing because we sell and service a lot of products online through internet and mobile banking. So, the medium is very important for us. We have a sizeable number of users who transact only through internet banking. Increasingly, with mobile phone penetration and smartphones coming in; mobile will definitely overtake internet sometime in the near future. So, mobile as a channel is very important for the banks. In my opinion, both the channels will play a wider role than just marketing and communication tools. 

Which according to you have been some of the most exciting online campaigns that the company has initiated for its brand so far? 

We have been doing some really interesting applications since last year. Most of them are on Facebook which were very product specific. For example we launched a range of credit cards called ‘My Credit Cards’ with that we have launched an app in which based on user’s photographic scan or face scan the application will show which card is right for them. So, the options provided were based on Facebook data of the user what are their likes and dislikes etc. The app also allowed online fulfilment so the users can click straight to the ‘Apply for the Credit Card’ and get a card. Therefore, digital medium is crucial as it generates leads and there are many products which we can actually fulfil and close online. 

How do you see your brand leveraging display advertisements on internet? 

I believe that while we do Display Advertising it should lead to something it is the destination that is important. So, where the display ad is going and what is happening over there is important. Axis Bank’s strategy is more to create more engaging content and then use display to drive traffic to that content. Currently, we are doing display advertising but we are driving content either to product films or say initiative like ProgressTogether.in which is a social network that was launched as an extension to our 'Badhti ka naam zindagi', campaign which is built on the idea that how an individual's progress in life is interlinked with the growth of others.

So, basically the destination of display advertising must be interesting otherwise consumers will not be clicking on the ads or even if they do it would be a waste of money because it will not translate into anything. 

What answers do you seek from your digital advertising agencies and digital media partners while promoting your brand on internet? 

The consumer in the digital space is more impatient and harder to please. The most important thing we seek from the digital partners is high level of creativity and fairly quick go to market initiatives. We cannot spend too much time, money to invest in applications because they become outdated very quickly. The activities should be quick, engaging and at the same time not very difficult to do that’s what we ask from the digital agencies. 

Axis Bank has engaged users on social media with Facebook and Twitter presence. What scope do you see in the social media space? 

There are couple of things that we do as a brand on social media one of which is informing customers about new products and offers. The second thing is addressing the complaints and queries posted on social media. Many times customers post complaint and feedback on these channels so we pick and take them to their logical conclusion by addressing them and closing the issue. So, customer service on social media is very important aspect. Banking is not a very high involvement category so social media allows us to get a higher share of our customers’ mind and our presence in their lives is at a higher frequency than it would have been otherwise. Thus, a customer may not go his/her bank’s branch a month or check the internet banking every week but probably on Facebook they may go on our page several times a day.

In the context of BFSI, both online and offline transactions take place. But there is a perception that people research and compare products online and buy them offline. What do you think of this perception? Is it likely to change anytime soon? 

There are certain products which cannot be bought online so for them adoption will take longer because we have strict KYC (Know Your Customers) norms wherein we have to do certain amount of documentation along with customer’s physical signatures so these procedures cannot be done online. So, in such cases an online lead may generate but it will be serviced offline. But there are many other products now in the financial space which are quite self-serving like travel insurance. We have very robust online systems now to do credit checks and sanctions for loans but even after that there is some amount of paper work as well as documentation which needs to be done offline which is something we haven’t been able to overcome yet. The effort, however, is always to do as much process online. 

People are speaking about mobile being a great medium for brand communication, but still, very less amounts are spent on the particular medium. What is your take on this?

I think on mobile the focus has been more app driven rather than generic branding because the screen size is very small. Generic branding on mobile screen ends up becoming an irritant than engagement as bothersome banners keep appearing when a user is trying to do something else. So, the marketers have taken a more app approach than the banner advertising on mobile therefore the investment in this medium is more on infrastructure in the app creation rather than display advertising. The company in its own app can do advertising serving it properly. 

Axis Bank has a very simple mobile application presently which is available across platforms. In 2012, we have significantly improved on boarding process because in a banking application there are many security features. So in our apps we need to authenticate our users so the process of which needs to be simple otherwise customers will not download the app. We have simplified the whole process of downloading the application and authenticating it some time back. Presently, we have close to two and half lakh users and we have also launched a non-smart app but a USSD based application for non-smartphone users. We have 50, 000 – 70, 000 users on that application. 

How do you see Axis Bank’s digital spends moving this year - in terms of growth and focus?

The digital spends are only going to move up and the medium will increasingly get higher share of marketer expenses. 

How do you see your marketing objectives aligning with what the online medium offers from two years down the line?

We are in the middle of a new campaign and initiative that will roll out soon. We have tried to do something different with ProgressTogether network. We have tried to create brand engagement platform as well as we have done very different type engagement on product advertising which is more game based rather than simple advertising so we are waiting to see what will be the response to our initiatives. We will measure them and accordingly decide how to tweak our strategy going forward.