Tech ready

Bank of Baroda has a new campaign ready to talk about its tech-savvy avatar. With a series of eight animated ads, Baroda Next shows whether the customer needs to make that eleventh hour payment of bills, repay loan installments, premiums or even tax, or if he needs a home loan in a matter of days, the bank’s website is the place to stop by.

Bank of Baroda is a public sector bank of 110 years and is sprucing up its online offerings as well as its on-ground count of ATMs and speedy service. Moody’s Investors Service, the rating agency, had put down ‘computerisation of the...public sector bank branches, networking...’ as factors that ailed the Indian banking industry which has more public sector banks than private banks. Bank of Baroda, on its part, has brought its 3,100 branches onto its core banking solution, that is, on a common server so that transactions don’t remain branch-specific. The new campaign aims to convey the technological upgrades the bank has gone through. “We want to get more and more of our customers to use alternate delivery channels such as the internet, mobile and ATMs,” says Bank of Baroda General Manager Nandan Srivastava.

However, it is not the first public sector bank to do so. Others such as State Bank of India and Central Bank of India have all made huge investments in information technology, and give most services that Bank of Baroda now offers. But through its communication campaign, the bank is trying its best to differentiate itself. The campaign was conceived by Mudra India, and the animation has been done by Studio Eeksaurus. Mudra India CEO Jude Fernandes says, “As a strategy, we tried to avoid emotional themes. Instead, we opted for humour and stick-figure animation which will form an instant connection with the youth who are familiar with the animated world through games, comics and surfing on the internet.”

Most bank campaigns have played on the emotional theme to bond with consumers. This is the first time that animation has been used with an eye on the youth. Retail depositors are important for banks because they are the source of the low-cost current account and savings account deposits.

The ads are a continuation of the Baroda Next line of communication where the bank first spoke about its technology with a human touch last year. Through a corporate redesign and with a new brand ambassador in Rahul Dravid, the bank had started changing its image in late 2005. It had then claimed 1.26 million more customers and mobilisation of Rs 650 crore of savings account deposits within 45 days of the Dravid campaign.

Since 2006, the bank has also put in place 34 ‘retail loan factories’ which are staffed by its sales team to follow up leads on loan requests. It is this network that will enable swift servicing of home loans in six days and car loans in two days. Over the last two months, the bank has added 125 marketing personnel to deal with the increased traffic. Numbers for the latest campaign are yet to come in.

With its Baroda Next campaign, it is countering its image of being not very tech-savvy. “Even though we have been seen as a system-driven bank, we have not always been perceived as technologically advanced. That is changing both at the ground level and in the minds of our customers,” says Srivastava.