Marketing Wiz is a joint initiative between Kotak Mutual Fund and Wealth Forum, where we share insights on how distributors and advisors can accelerate their business growth by understanding and applying essential marketing concepts and practices. Marketing is often seen as a relatively weak link in an IFA's practice, and therefore offers high potential to deliver growth, if leveraged intelligently. It will be the endeavour of Marketing Wiz to help you strengthen your marketing capabilities, connect better with clients and prospects, serve clients better and thus enhance your own business growth.

In this article we look at the way the Melbourne Metro turned what would have been a tedious, boring, gloomy lecture on public safety into a fun and entertaining musical with cartoon characters that appeals to both the young and young at heart. There are very useful lessons for financial advisors here, to find innovative and fun ways to drive home financial planning related messages that would otherwise seem just as dull and boring as public safety messages.

Poke fun - gently

Every city across the world puts up public safety messages at railway stations, on highways, near schools - just about at every public place that is prone to accidents. Most people turn a blind eye to these messages - not because they are irrelevant, but just because they are so boring that they don't arrest our attention, they don't make us think, and act.

The Melbourne Metro, in 2012, decided to do something different. They created a short, three-minute animated musical called "Dumb Ways To Die". The first 2 minutes of the video actually shows really dumb ways to die, which brings a smile on your face and keeps you engaged. When they've got your attention, they slip into more dumb ways to die - this time, by showcasing how dumb it is to be careless around train tracks. The message hits home, nice and clear.

The video went viral because of its appeal and has since spawned animated video games and has even been licensed to an insurance company to sell its products.

The ``Dumb Ways to Die'' campaign uses the main elements of any successful social media campaign - it is short, colorful, and emotive. Numerous studies have shown that the most shared items on social media are those that generate some emotion - happiness, anger, pathos, and so on. The way in which this ad differs from others launched on social media is that it takes what should be a serious subject - safety - and converts it into a fun topic. It shows how stupid it is to be careless around train tracks - it pokes fun, gently. It drives home the message effectively.

How about "Dumb ways to retire poor"?

What can we learn from this excellent marketing communications strategy? Come to think of it, most of our messages about cultivating the savings habit, about systematic investments, about staying invested for the long term and so on, may sound just as boring to an individual as public safety messages that he sees around him, most of which he perhaps ignores. Maybe, we ought to try and create our messages like Melbourne Metro did. Maybe we ought to try and poke fun - gently.

How about this: maybe you can create an animated video or a powerpoint slide show around a theme "Dumb ways to retire poor". Start off with some really dumb ways to retire poor,

1. like blowing up your life savings betting on Mumbai Indians winning IPL 2015,

2. like taking your spouse and parents-in-law on a business class foreign vacation each time you quarrel with your better half

3. like buying diamonds for your better half each time you return from these vacations, as your "making up" gift

Once you've got the viewer engaged, move on to subjects closer to investing, like

1. like putting in your life's savings into an exciting new "smart city" property development in the middle of nowhere, believing this to be the smartest move of your life,

2. like making a really smart move to invest heavily into a hugely advertised guaranteed 20% p.a. return agri-forest investment scheme

3. like getting petrified by all the scams and market swings and deciding to keep your money really safe in bank deposits, only to discover when you retire, that its just not enough

You can then introduce the thought about how some sensible planning for retirement can save you from retiring poor, with a call to action to contact you or visit your website for more information.

This is just one thought. You can think of many more along these lines, which you think will appeal to your target clients. You can for example create something around "Dumb Ways to Spend" and showcase how an alternative to such "dumb" spending is investing intelligently to get rich.

The key is to give a "cool twist" to what most consumers see as "boring messages" that we routinely put out. We've had enough of the same old messages "Start Early", "Invest Regularly" and "Think Long Term". How about something different, which will really connect with today's consumers?

All content in Marketing Wiz is created by Wealth Forum and should not be construed as views of Kotak MF.

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