Low Mutual Fund penetration levels in India are
primarily due to the lack of awareness about this
asset class. As per SEBI’s investor awareness survey
conducted in 2015, mutual funds/SIPs were used by
only 10% of the respondents as investment and saving
avenues. This clearly indicates the necessity to create
better investor awareness. Overall advertisements by
fund houses and robust market performance are likely
to boost investors participation. This is further likely
to help deepen mutual fund penetration among new
investors, particularly in B30 markets.
Keeping the investors’ interest in mind while also encouraging higher participation, SEBI’s regulations directed AMCs to keep aside at least 2 bps of daily net assets for investor education initiatives. This was to boost awareness of capital markets investment products. As a responsible organisation, we embarked upon our investor education journey in 2010. We incubated the ‘Swatantra’ platform with the primary objective of creating awareness about financial planning and the benefits of investing in Mutual Funds among the common people.
UTI Swatantra is our flagship investor education initiative. In 2013, UTI Swatantra became India’s largest investor education programme based on reach, making it to the Limca Book of Records. Since then, Swatantra has undergone several changes. It is striving to mirror even more customer responses by comprehending how customers interact with media and how they eventually consume it. Basis this, in 2019, we refreshed the platform by creating a multi-channel approach entailing:
We launched Chatbot in October 2020 to enhance the consumer experience on our website. It is aimed at deriving more insights from users’ journey to find a better opportunity to engage through their personalised journey. Thus, helping them make a more informed investment decision, and all with the click of a button.
We started our Quora handle in the name Swatantra Kumar in October 2020. The idea behind this was to reach and engage with a high intent audience seeking information to make their investment decisions.
We also launched a page on UTIswatantra.com in November 2020. This was to connect the consumers with a panel of qualified investment advisors.
We launched our radio show on the channel Radio One across 5 cities. This is a weekly morning drive time show where experts (MFD’s) from each of the 5 cities engage with listeners by telling them all about investing in mutual funds. It throws light on how people with varied goals/age/profile/income can start their investment journey.
We launched our virtual marquee event named ‘The Colloquium’ on 18 March 2021 to extend our knowledge-sharing objective about the prevailing market trends. It targeted our key clients to encourage enriching conversations with prominent thought leaders.
We targeted people in the age bracket of 18-30 years who may have just begun their wealth creation journey. To provide solutions to this audience on First Easy Step to start investing in mutual funds, we promoted Index Fund and investment through SIP forvarious life goals.
People Reached through TV
Campaigns via Movies, News and
Regional GEC Channels
Investor Awareness Programme (IAP): We started this financial literacy programme for college students to start their future on the right note.
Conducted across
105 Cities
Millennial Money Matters (Podcast): We created this podcast series comprising 4 episodes. We presented different stories in each episode to show how one can manage his/her first paycheque and be smart with money.
Unique Listeners’ Reach
through Podcasts
We launched ‘Equal Right Equal Responsibilities’ campaign to raise awareness and drive investor education amongst independent, working women.
Audience Reach through Women
Investor Education Campaign
Besides, we also created some thought-provoking videobased content on the same lines and promoted it on TV and digital platforms.
We ran an investor education campaign for promoting ELSS with dual benefits. Generally, in the month of March, people tend to panic because of last-minute tax planning. We created more awareness and shared information on tax saving and wealth creation through this campaign run around tax filing time across TV and digital platforms.
Total Reach through the
Tax Campaign
Share of Voice (SOV) on Television in the MF Category