In a MediaBrief exclusive, Madhvi Gupta, Head of Marketing, ESG, and CSR at IIFL Home Finance Ltd., discusses the brand’s recently released #SaathHongeKamyaab film, an extension of their ‘Bharosa Bhau’ campaign.
Gupta underlines the inspiration and insights behind the campaign, revealing its objectives and outlining how ‘Bharosa Bhau’ aligns with IIFL Home Finance’s brand values and business philosophy.
She also speaks about the creative and strategic aspects of conceptualizing and developing this campaign and discusses why Pawan Malhotra was chosen to represent Bharosa Bhau across IIFL Home Finance’s multiple films.
Gupta also shares insights about the impact and media mix of the campaign and highlights what’s ahead in the marketing pipeline for IIFL Home Finance.
Idea behind IIFL Home Finance’s Bharosa Bhau
Talking about the insight behind IIFL Home Finance’s recent campaign and the idea behind Bharosa Bhau, Madhvi Gupta comments, “Through our recent marketing campaign, we address a common concern: people often lack trust in the organized sector. Individuals frequently find it easier to trust someone familiar—a friend or family member—over institutions, which leads them to borrow from those close to them.”
“Recognizing this challenge, the company envisioned the friendly, relatable figure, Bharosa Bhau, to bridge the trust gap and make IIFL Home Finance Ltd. as dependable as one’s own loved ones,” reveals Gupta.
She adds, “To address this need, we introduced a character who represents IIFL HFL and also embodies the wisdom and approachability of the trusted neighborhood confidant. ‘Bharosa Bhau’ is designed to be the go-to person for not just financial advice but any kind of guidance, offering the final stamp of trust before making important decisions that may be related to your home, business, etc.”
Highlighting the objective of the campaign, Gupta says, “With this campaign, we intend to emphasize the value of trust. IIFL HFL represents reliability and familiarity, making IIFL Home Finance Ltd. a trusted partner in every aspect of life.”
Highlighting the objective of the campaign, Gupta says, “With this campaign, we intend to emphasize the value of trust IIFL HFL represents reliability and familiarity, making IIFL Home Finance Ltd. a trusted partner in every aspect of life.”
Bharosa Bhau complements IIFL Home Finance
Noting how the ‘Bharosa Bhau’ campaign complements IIFL Home Finance’s core values and business philosophy, Gupta says, “The concept revolves around the theme of trust. Bharosa Bhau, a trusted figure, becomes the symbol of reliability in different life situations—whether it’s familiar bonds, romantic relationships, or matters of life or business. Bharosa Bhau (IIFL HFL) serves as the ultimate arbiter of trust, providing reassurance and affirmation.”
Further, “IIFL Home Finance Ltd.’s core values stand to be the trustworthy enabler of dreams, primarily for first-time home buyers in India, which have been kept on hold for various reasons. Our campaign ties back to insisting not to hold on to any dreams that aspire to make you better in the future,” she adds.
Aligning the campaign’s message with the brand’s values, she concludes, “The narrative then seamlessly transitions to Bharosa Bhau placing his trust in IIFL Home Finance Ltd., delivering a powerful message about the reliability and credibility of the financial institution in a light-hearted and humorous manner.”
IIFL Home Finance’s comical yet reliable approach
Shedding light on the creative and strategic aspects of conceptualizing and developing this campaign, Gupta says, “In a category that continues to be taken seriously, the #SaathHongeKamyaab campaign takes a comical yet reliable approach towards the consumer’s problem of placing trust in the formal financial sector.
“A stroke of humor, along with the strong foundation of Bharosa Bhau’s dependability, helped cement our intent of not just being a financial institution in this otherwise tough journey, but being tried and trusted as your friend,” she adds.
Pawan Malhotra as Bharosa Bhau
Addressing why Pawan Malhotra was chosen to represent Bharosa Bhau across IIFL Home Finance’s multiple films and how his persona contributes to the campaign message of trust, Gupta shares that it’s Malhotra’s age, presence in Indian cinema, and versatility of roles that make him ideal for holding different conversations around trust as well as appealing to audiences across India.
She says, “Pawan Malhotra stands strong as a bold character who can be trusted based on his performances delivered on screen. In the past, he has also taken part in roles like that of a coach and family uncle, which allows the brand (IIFL HFL) to leverage his personality and mirror it to the values of IIFL Home Finance Ltd.”
Further, she reveals the personality traits of Bharosa Bhau which she found reflected in Pawan Malhotra.
“Bharosa Bhau is the trustworthy, dependable, and extremely reliable older brother in the lives of our target audience. In the otherwise tedious home-loan-seeking process, his presence is not only significant but also extremely comforting.
“His name incorporates the most valued trait of ‘bharosa’ and combines it with the familiar relation of a ‘bhau’. We imagine this direction to be a distillation of a multitude of experiences Bharosa Bhau has lived through, experiences that he’s learned from, laughed at, and sailed through—all adorned in full glory in his attire.
“His wisdom comes through the life he has seen; his clothes serve as a canvas for his personality. This makes his recall extremely high in the minds of someone who is looking for someone from their own circle to also be the face of reason.”
The Bharosa Bhau trilogy
Further, Gupta elaborates on the trilogy of films that are part of the ‘Bharosa Bhau’ campaign and the story each film tells. She also expands on how each film works to support the campaign’s narrative.
“The campaign extends to three films, with Bharosa Bhau being the sole provider of ‘trust’ to the protagonist in different scenarios. These scenarios were picked based on things that will be visually obvious but still have a person doubting them.
“We wanted to show that even when a situation speaks for itself, people still go to Bharosa Bhau to really believe that or verify it. This was also to hint at the behavior of our audience, who do not place trust on face value and rather question everything until the right authority gives them the go-ahead,” explains Gupta.
She shares the three films that are part of the campaign, discussing each of them.
A friend trio, trying to enjoy republic day together but a friend being sad sparks a trust issue amongst all of him being an Indian or not. Bharosa Bhau investigates the scene and after a few questions he declares him to be an Indian positioning ‘Bharosa Bhau’ as the centre and provider of trust.
Twins not being able to trust they are twins, ends up being in a ditch. Calling for Bharosa, ‘Bharosa Bhau’ appears, does his investigation and ends up solving the case in his favour, proving how India trusts Bhau with their problems and Bharosa Bhau never disappoints in providing the trust.
Two childhood friends not being able to trust and getting cold feet with numerous questions in head, Bharosa Bhau appears and helps them to trust each other while promising them the trust will not break.
“All these films set Bharosa Bhau as the sole provider of trust, and being the best at his job to provide it. His association with IIFL Home Finance positions us as the bearer of trust, proving ‘Jinpe aapka hai poora vishwas, unka bharosa hai humare paas,’” explains Gupta.
IIFL Home Finance’s media mix for Bharosa Bhau
Talking about the media mix for this campaign and how IIFL Home Finance Ltd. is leveraging social and digital platforms to elevate the campaign, Gupta reveals, “Given the objective of this campaign was to help drive business targets, the team focused on lead generation as one of the core objectives.
“The strategy was focused on driving lead generation via traditional digital marketing levers like Google Search and Meta ads. Other social media platforms provided significant incremental gains in overall traffic and business leads.”
“In addition, we also plan to run an experiment on some new-age local media channels such as Chingari, Moj, etc. We optimized our campaigns by utilizing pin code level targeting for relevant cohorts and running campaign assets like videos and static ads in vernacular languages for non-English speaking states,” adds Gupta.
Impact of the campaign
Speaking about the impact of the campaign and how it has addressed the need for reassurance and trust-building in the financial sector, Gupta says, “The campaign revolved around utilizing our brand film, which was based on the theme of trust and safety when it comes to digital lending products.
“In terms of impact numbers, we did a period-on-period comparison (approximately a fortnight). There was a 40% increase in traffic on the IIFLHomeloans.com website during the campaign period (exposed period) compared to the previous period when the campaign wasn’t running (dark period).
“In terms of incremental users on the home page clicks, we observed a 20% jump during the performance campaign period versus the dark period when the campaign wasn’t running,” she adds.
What’s next for IIFL Home Finance
With the success of the first leg of the Bharosa campaign, Gupta shares that “IIFL Home Finance Ltd. is looking forward to exploring more conversations around the theme of trust, financial literacy, credibility, and reliability,” because “this will strengthen the brand’s positioning of serving the underserved with state-of-the-art fintech solutions focused on providing their customers with the best financial service.”
