After the amalgamation of Lakshmi Vilas Bank with DBS Bank India in November 2020, DBS Bank India has 530 branches across 19 states. This April, DBS Bank India rolled-out its ‘One DBS’ brand campaign which talks about the new benefits for its customers with banking solutions for both individuals and businesses. The campaign film highlighted the bank’s ability to up the ante with the combination of its enlarged physical presence and much-awarded digital expertise. In a conversation with BrandWagon Online, Shoma Narayanan, managing director and head – group strategic marketing and communications, DBS Bank India shared her insights on the role of evolving technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector. (Edited Excerpts)
What is the role of AI/ML in the BFSI industry? How has DBS Bank leveraged this?
The talk of the town right now is generative AI, and this is still at an evolving stage with legalities and intellectual property are still being sorted out. However, we are using AI generated images in some of our upcoming campaigns.
We have used some AI generated images on our social media and we use chatbots, and other martech tools which are AI enabled. We also use data analytics and predictive data analytics that help us understand the needs and preferences of our customers, and the most effective way to communicate with them.
With so much investment on digital medium through AI and Metaverse. So, what percentage of your marketing budget does DBS Bank allocate to digital marketing? What is the marketing-mix and by what percent the marketing budget has increased as compared to the last year?
We do a lot of external marketing through a mix of traditional and digital media which helps us attract new customers. A large part of our marketing budgets are allocated towards targeting our existing clients with campaigns because we are a digital-first bank. It depends on the segment that we are talking about, for example, when we are look at our digibank accounts, then all our marketing is digital, from acquisition to future engagement and customer service. However, for other propositions including SME clients, we have a mix of digital and traditional. Around 10-11% of the total acquisition for our SME is through marketing. Coming to the larger brands building campaigns which are omni-channel and include TV and outdoor advertising.
So, our advertising and marketing split between traditional and digital media is 50-50. We have increased our marketing budget by about 20% this fiscal.
What is the split of the customer base in terms of age? How are you targeting young customers?
Majority of our customers, that is, 46%, are between the age bracket of 26-42 years. This is followed by what you popularly call as Generation X, people aged between 43-60 years are 28% of our customers. 14% of our customers are Gen-Z, that is less than 26 years and 12% of the customer base is occupied by senior citizens, people aged above 60 years.
When we launched retail banking in India, we launched with a product called digibank, the product which essentially aimed to attract the digital savvy generation. Additionally, we have an AI-powered chatbot within the digibank app, that helps in navigating the app.
With the festive season around the corner, what kind of products or services are you planning to come up with? What are your plans for the festive season?
We typically keep acquisition campaigns at an always-on level. There is also a concept of incrementality so you kind of tweak or you run tests and experiments, increase your spending a little bit and see how that results in terms of cost of acquisition. Thus, we won’t be doing a big external facing campaign during this time. Existing customers will receive offers and products including offers on our credit and debit cards. Apart from that, the interest rates that we offer on retail are attractive, and we will continue to promote that.
What is the importance of incorporating sustainability and responsibility to brand campaigns and overall positioning?
This is a shift that is happening among younger consumers as people are becoming conscious of what they consume, and how the products or services that they are availing of impact human rights.
We have a very clearly outlined sustainability strategy, and we communicate that consistently to our customers. One of the interesting ways in which we do this globally is through our web series ‘Sparks’. The web-series essentially tells a story of a group of bankers who are trying to solve customers’ problems in different ways using technology and sustainable solutions.
We are also seeing a high level of engagements for our social media posts which are sustainability linked. Our sustainability initiatives are organised under three parts. One is responsible banking, which includes the kind of products and services we offer to our customers. The second is responsible business practices, which helps us ensure that our own carbon footprint is minimal, among other practices. Then, the third part is creating social media impact or impact beyond banking.
How has the role of chief marketing officer (CMO) and banks evolved post-covid in the BFSI sector?
One of the challenges we had was actually around the adoption of digital because with low cost internet access, most people were already online but perhaps not that comfortable with banking online or making transactions online. This was not something isolated to older age cohorts; even younger people were comfortable seeing the balance online but were not comfortable shopping and investing online.
One of the things that Covid did was to accelerate mass digital adoption across age cohorts. Post-covid people coming into our branches but with a changed perspective. They are more focused on sustainability. I would say in the last five years, there has been a dramatic shift in the role of CMO because in the olden days, it was about getting the leads in. Today, the choice is in the customers’ hands, and they decide how they want to engage with brands, whether it is through social media or apps, or physical or digital channels.