Bank for the buck

It was an ad campaign that had crowd-sourcing written all over it. The name of the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) came from three corners of the country. Another person designed the logo of people joining hands around the cause of financial inclusion. The tagline ‘ Aap ka khaata bhagya vidhaata ’ (Hindi for ‘a bank account is the maker of your destiny’) came from another set of individuals.

But that did not mean that the ad agency was left without a job in hand. Ad agency RK Swamy BBDO, which is handling the launch campaign of the PMJDY, had the Herculean task of putting it all together in a manner that all of India could relate to it. Sangeetha N, President (West) and Executive Creative Director, RK Swamy BBDO, says, “The creative challenge was about managing a difficult subject like financial inclusion without talking down to somebody and without alienating the rest of the people who already have bank accounts.”

In some ways, it was the tale of two Indias. In the major cities and in the higher income groups, people just don’t get it — why is it such a big deal to open a bank account? But for another part of the population that does not have a bank account and keeps its savings at home, the issue is one of “what if our entire life’s savings is robbed in one evening,” as Sangeetha points out. The task before RK Swamy BBDO was to strike a fine balance in its communication.

In some ways, the Union Government had set the contours of the campaign. On mygov.in the Central government gave a description of the largest financial inclusion initiative taken since Independence and invited suggestions from the general public for a name, logo and a baseline for the scheme. For a country the size of India, the number of entries that came in was probably low. Only 6,000 entries came in from various corners of the country, according to the government website. But inside those ideas was a common thread connecting the diversity of India. Three individuals from three different corners of the country came up with the name Jan-Dhan Yojana. That helped in more than one way. Because if people across the country were picking this name, it ensured that the same name would work across the country across languages.

The next step for RK Swamy BBDO was work out how to communicate this scheme easily to a diverse audience. It had to look at the campaign from several aspects, like how does one communicate with the higher income groups without making them look down on the lower income groups. “Or how to communicate with the lower income groups and not make them feel like they are being looked down upon and to convey that it’s good for India,” adds Sangeetha. So instead of featuring humans in the launch advertisements, the agency decided to convert this idea into animated characters that belong to only one class — they are Indian as they are in the colours of the national flag.

The next idea was to design a communication that would work across states. In the audio-visual ads, for example, the agency stuck to a formula that guarantees success. It got popular singers from different parts of India to lend their voice in the regional languages. For example, Palakkad Sreeram sang for the ads in Tamil and Malayalam, Keerthi Sagathia lent his voice for the Gujarati commercial, Soham Chakraborty, Bengali. “These are the softer aspects that play a huge part in audience involvement. People are familiar with popular voices in their region,” says Sangeetha who is herself a trained Hindustani vocalist.

Finally, it was musicians Salim-Sulaiman who put together the racy soundtrack for the commercial. The soundtrack ‘ Badhtey Jaa ’ (‘move forward’ in Hindi) was set to a tempo that serves as a call to action and move people to go to the bank as a priority. Music director Salim, popular as a jury member in the Indian Idol , also gave the voice-over for the ad.

Within 48 hours, the marketing merchandise was on display in every bank branch in the country. Sangeetha gives the Finance Ministry and the banking sector full credit for co-ordinating that. The proof of a successful campaign is in its result. Within a week of the campaign launch, about 2.1 crore accounts had already been opened under the PMJDY, when the Centre had set a target of 7.5 crore accounts in 100 days. Like the clarion call of the campaign jingle, India seems to be in a mood to move ahead.

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