Kotak mahindra's "Save with Subbu" social media campaign

1. Kotak Mahindra’s “Save With Subbu” campaign
on Social Media
By:- Pradeep Oli – 23rd March 2013

2. Context
• Ever since RBI has deregulated savings account interest
rates, Kotak Mahindra Bank has been on a perpetual
promotional campaign emphasizing about its 6% interest
rate, which is 50% extra as compared to the existing rate of
4% in other banks.
• The bank had roped in Vinay Pathak to play the know-it-all
“Subbu” who seemed to have an interesting investment
advice for everyone, through a series of TV, print ads
• Strengthening this message further, the bank has launched
a social media campaign ‘Save with Subbu’

3. Objective
• Highlight the benefits of smart saving and
• Engage customers to experience banking with Kotak
Mahindra:
• Get people thinking and talking about ways to save smart and
reward the outstanding participants with merchandise like t-shirts,
badges, etc.

4. Methodology
• Customer engagement:
• Campaign where users can co-author a ‘Smart Savings Book’
along with the brand mascot, Subbu by sharing their saving
tips .
• Users can share their smart saving tips with Subbu and the
best tips will be featured in the ‘Smart Savings Book’.

5. Platforms used and salient features
• Facebook and Twitter:
• Smart saving tips can be shared either through Facebook or your Twitter
account. You need to ‘like’ the Facebook page to participate
• Once you like the page, you are welcomed by the home page of Save With
Subbu app. An array of tips submitted by fans is displayed along with the
names and the category it has been submitted under. These tips can be re-
tipped, liked or commented upon. The entries can be sorted by most recent or
most re-tipped or most liked
• The entries can be further filtered by categories too. You can filter tips by
Subbu’s tips, Finance Management, Entertainment or Shopping amongst many
others. You can add your own tip through the tab ‘Add tip+’. The tips you
submit will be published only after approval.
• ‘How to participate’ is a visual representation of the steps to participate

6. Platforms used and salient features (contd…)
• #SavewithSubbu on Twitter:
• You can share your tips through Twitter too. Just include
#SavewithSubbu and @kotakindia in your tweets. There is no
need to follow the bank’s Twitter handle. The hashtag
#SavewithSubbu had trended on the day of launch

7. Brief analysis
• One of the best and most vital functions that any brand associated
with money can perform is to improve financial awareness. Indians
have traditionally been risk-averse when it comes to investments
and even trying out new savings schemes
• Kotak Mahindra’s initiative may go a long way in breaking that
mindset. The contest is clean and the prize is nothing too big in
terms of monetary value but the fun is in earning budgets that
prove you’re financially smart
• The best part is that the filtering by the brand ensures the quality of
content on the app. The response appears to be really good