The Hindu Business Line : UTI MF banks on ‘dabbawalas’ to promote new scheme

Mumbai, Nov. 11 The Mumbai-based dabbawalas are now coming to the rescue of the mutual fund industry looking for a cheaper communications vehicle for promoting its schemes.

With mutual funds slashing ad budgets in times of a slowdown, UTI Mutual Fund has taken the initiative to opt for a less expensive means for communicating its schemes through the strength of 5,000-odd dabbawalas in Mumbai.

“Most mutual funds have reduced their ad budgets by about 30-40 per cent and we have done the same. We have now decided to appoint dabbawalas as relationship managers for our new wealth builder fund which combines the benefits of both equity and gold,” said Mr Jaideep Bhattacharya, Chief Marketing Officer, UTI AMC.

Retail investors

In spite of heavy redemptions in the mutual fund industry, there is still hope of retail investors staying invested and targeting them through such direct promotions is now the strategy being adopted by UTI Mutual Fund.

“We are still bullish on the retail investor who has stayed invested and has not opted for redemption unlike the FIIs who have been selling the schemes,” claims Mr Bhattacharya. With limited marketing funds at its disposal, UTI Mutual Fund has decided to use a BTL (below the line) communications strategy.

“The dabbawalas would be wearing our branded T-shirts and are being trained on how to hand over the mutual fund forms to the office-goer to whom he delivers the dabba. We realised, in this case, the direct hits through media ads would be much lower compared with the impact it would have on potential users who would be directly approached by the dabbawalas. There would be a bigger bang for the buck spent through direct marketing,” adds Mr Bhattacharya. While using fragmented mass media would have its limitations, using the 5,000-odd dabbawalas serving Mumbai’s office goers is seen as a less expensive and viable marketing tool suiting the limited resources of the asset management company.

Besides, dabbawalas are perceived to be trustworthy and loyal, attributes which a mutual fund would also like to get associated with.

“There is credibility associated with the dabbawala as he is seen to be a reliable person who delivers food. We have thus decided to appoint him as our relationship manager in agreement for fee which will be paid to him to deliver our schemes,” added Mr Bhattacharya.

In the rest of the metros, UTI Mutual Fund is also staying away from mass media and using the mobile phone screens to communicate information on its latest fund. “We are doing a SMS blast as we believe that there is 85 per cent recall through a mobile phone,” said Mr Bhattacharya. Currently, UTI Mutual Fund has 95 lakh retail investors. It plans to add another 1.5 lakh investors through its new and cheaper marketing initiatives in a market where consumer demand is slowing down.

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