InvestBae: Why Nippon favours Gen Z slang, 'passive advertising'

From opening your first fixed deposit to starting your first SIP (systematic investment plan), the idea of investing has changed dramatically in India in the last decade or so.

- Soumya Gupta

So has the fate of Nippon India Mutual Fund, the fourth largest in India, managing assets worth over ₹6.54 trillion for more than 20 million investors. But building brand recall in a highly regulated industry dominated by bigger financial firms is no easy task. Kaiyomurz Daver, Nippon's chief marketing officer, says the trick is to become part of an investor's daily life. Edited excerpts:

Consumer brands are really pushing boundaries on how they communicate. How do you go about brand-building in such a regulated market?

We have a tough challenge of building a brand. As the fourth largest, we compete with bank-sponsored mutual fund brands that have decades of customer familiarity and visibility behind them. As a child, you may have visited their branches; your first salary account may have been with them. You see their ATMs, you may have taken their life insurance-you've grown up being exposed to those brands in multiple ways.