SBI: The Banker to Every Indian

Posted on May 25th, 2010 in Banks | 0 comments

The recent print advertisement campaign of State Bank of India has come as a pleasing surprise to many. Kudos to the agency namely Interpublicity behind these very esthete and catching series headlined “The Banker to Every Indian.”

SBI is the oldest and largest public sector bank, yet it doesn’t have a brand recall akin to other banking and financial service providers. SBI have been in a dormant state even after post liberalization era. Only it’s sheer size backed by government made this so called ‘lethargic’ and ‘bureaucratic’ organization survive. SBI lately have realized the threat it is being posed by private banking industry. Young consumers are continuously shunning away from the giant banker and are being lured away by glamour and quick service of private banking. For a long time competitors in the banking sector like ICICI and Kotak etc. have been launching massive ad campaigns and SBI have remained silent spectator. Now, the “giant” has risen from “hibernation”

The ad series depicts some of the most quintessential features of SBI. Lately but fortunately it has realized the need of “brand-construction”. What’s surprising in their advertisement campaign is that they aren’t talking about any financial products, or zero interest rates or their extensive reach of branches or ATMs for the matter but are grounding their campaign on the elements of trust, familiarity and nearly two centuries old banking heritage and service.

The series depicting Motilal Nehru, an eminent Indian independence activist, Sardar Patel architect of the integrity of India, Jagdishchandra Bose, an eminent Indian scientist, Dadabhai Navroji, founder of Indian National Congress , Rabindranath Tagore, first Asian Nobel Laureate, M Visvesvaraya, Engineer and Statesman, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Independent India’s first President, as customers of SBI aims at single minded focus in creating a brand value for SBI and projecting it a very distinguishable name among other service providers in the same niche. A lot of ads also have low income and high income group people shown together with the same tagline “The Banker to Every Indian” which makes a very powerful impact in terms of its customer base and services offered.
The clinging benefit to the brand is its trustworthiness and credibility in the market as that of an old Indian bank. Importantly the brand personality is very much well reflected in the series.
SBI is indeed banking of its USP which no other bank can boast of, way to go….

Rakesh Choudhary