Edelweiss AMC to spend more on vernacular, home-grown content in 2021

Various reports have shown how, during the Covid-19 lockdown, audiences embraced home-grown, Indian and raw content. Local became more important now than ever before as people wanted something they can relate to and not just a piece of polished content.

Building on this belief, Radhika Gupta, MD and CEO, Edelweiss AMC, told BuzzInContent.com how the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) category needs to focus more on storytelling, especially those inclined towards home-grown ideas.

The general perception about BFSI is that it is complicated, full of jargons, hard to consume or a not-so-interesting category.

Dismissing the belief, Gupta said, “Consuming BFSI content doesn't need to be boring. Storytelling is an art in every industry; and in the BFSI category too. But there has to be the use of ideas that are more home-grown. A lot of BFSI content is built around international ideas; the point of reference may be Warren Buffett or what's going on in West. But we really believe content for the Indian audience has to be from India. There are great Indian stories and ideas that can make content interesting.” 

For the company, the important thing is to create financial content that is more relatable and doesn't have jargon. It is also trying to do content around themes that are more home-grown.

In terms of content marketing, apart from producing campaigns, it runs the Edelweiss Connect platform— a physical platform that has now turned digital. It provides expertise to organise, run, support, and manage collaborative research projects, both innovation-oriented and service-based. It runs webinars on the same platform where guests from every domain talk about Investment, Personal Finance and their specialities.

Explaining how it has received an overwhelming response on its webinar series, she said its ROI is measured via the number of attendees, number of views on YouTube (of recording) and the feedback it gets on social media and offline.

Given how in the Covid-19 pandemic the delivery of content has to be digital, she said webinars are something that have been overdone in during these times. “I think webinars are about structuring the content thoughtfully, and doing it regularly. So there has to be a constant theme around that. That's why webinars are important and it is here to stay. Plus, people are reading less these days and listening and watching more. So, podcast too as a medium definitely get to go.”

It has been experimenting with podcasts as well to bring forth home-grown content. For the brand, the podcasts produced in Hindi and other vernacular languages have actually done better, which has inspired it to do more vernacular work in the coming months.

“In Hindi we definitely want to do a lot more. We've done BAF (Balanced Advantage Fund) campaign in Hindi and southern languages too. So I think vernacular is the future and we will be doing more vernacular. It is something on which we definitely want to spend more because a lot of home-grown content, when produced in vernacular, is more powerful,” she said.

The brand, in the beginning of the year, had associated with Josh Talks to become the first mutual fund house to partner with the content platform to curate real stories of advisors to reach its target in eight languages in tier II, III and IV cities.

She said vernacular had existed before Covid-19 had happened but the pandemic gave people more time to explore stories in this format.

The brand invests 30% of its total marketing budget in content marketing. Since the pandemic has forced the brand to get a little more innovative, Gupta said its investments in content marketing will definitely not go down next year. “It is very powerful medium for us and it's not about launching new properties but about continuing to invest in what we're doing best,” she said.

The brand hasn’t done anything recently in print, but it is open to both print and radio for its content marketing initiatives.