Humor-centric story telling

Azmat Habibullah, MD & Head Group Strategic Marketing and Communications, DBS Bank India, explores the creative art that resonates with customers:

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Smriti Pandey: Use of humor in banking is very rare. What was the motivation to use humor? What approaches other than humor was considered?

Azmat Habibullah: Banking can be considered a commoditized sector, with similar products and benefits being offered to the customer, from across brands. This ‘sameness’ is often transferred into the marketing approach for banking products and no vertical is more guilty of this than B2B banking products. A LinkedIn and MAGNA Media Trials study (August 2024) revealed that 64% of business decision-makers believe B2B ads lack humor, while 60% felt that they lacked emotional appeal.

Our marketing efforts at DBS Bank India are driven by our brand ethos of ‘Live more, Bank less’, a category-defying promise which underlines our commitment to making banking simple, seamless, and invisible, so customers have more time to spend on what matters to them. With an objective of increasing top of funnel awareness for DBS IDEAL among businesses, the challenge was to cut through the clutter with a creative strategy that stood out from the undifferentiated, feature-heavy communication of competitors.

Our customer immersion sessions with business owners across different cities - revealed real world insights. Two specific themes stood out. First, advertising fatigue - most couldn't recall a single bank ad. It wasn't disinterest in financial products, but a disconnect between industry messaging and their reality. What resonated more was content that felt relevant, and reflective of their world - not just another list of product benefits.