Episode 202 / Anju Chauhan / YES Bank / SVP Marketing
Overcoming the Challenge of Consumer Privacy in Targeted Marketing
Anju Chauhan is the SVP of Marketing at YES Bank, one of India’s top commercial and retail banks. She has a varied career experience, from a degree in engineering to an MBA in marketing, working in start-ups and various banking roles. Her shiny new object is consumer privacy and the way it will impact targeted marketing for brands in the future.
The future of targeted, personalised marketing is linked to navigating the ever more important role of consumer privacy. In banking as well as other industries, Anju believes that it’s now becoming essential to create consumer journeys that allow brands to have multiple touchpoints with their end consumers.
Through these touchpoints, marketers can focus on gathering first-party data and ultimately, designing the personalised experiences that consumers appreciate from brands. And, of course, they will create the opportunity to upsell and cross sell over the longer term.
For Anju, the banking industry has a slight advantage when it comes to operating with first party data. Having knowledge of consumers’ transactions allows banking marketers to paint a clearer personalised picture of the target audience.
For those outside of banking, the key will be to design consumer journeys that both engage the audience and allow them to opt in to provide first party data to brands. This means providing value, so that consumers can see there are reasons to opt in to further communication.
Find out how brands successfully use WhatsApp to create personalised messages in India, what Anju believes is the worst marketing advice, and her top tips for new starters in the industry, on the podcast.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Ollerton 0:05
Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative. And this is a weekly podcast where I get to interview really smart and lovely people from the industry about what they think the future of the industry is. So I am on a call today with Anju Chauhan, who is SVP marketing at Yes bank. Anju, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do. Can you give us a bit of an overview?
Anju Chauhan 0:34
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Tom for giving me this opportunity. I'm Anju and I started my career in engineering, I'm an engineering graduate, worked with an IT company and after that, I did my MBA in marketing, and after that, I worked with an NBFC and was handling marketing for their homegrown product. Then I moved to a bank and I worked in Treasury, in marketing support, then I moved to product where I handled product portfolio and new product launches for forex card, that is ICICI bank. And after that, I worked with a startup for one and a half years, but during which there was this whole COVID scenario happened and the startups was not in a good shape. And then I moved again back to a bank currently with YES Bank. I'm At SVP level in marketing I, I lead product marketing for liability business of Yes bank.
Tom Ollerton 1:37
I don't know anything about Yes bank, it's well, I know a bit more than I used to, but can you help the audience understand more about Yes bank for those who won't be so familiar?
Anju Chauhan 1:46
So, Yes bank is in India's among top six private banks, it is a commercial, fully commercial and retail bank. Earlier Yes Bank was focused more on corporate. Now, with the changing scenario, we are going more granular, we want to reach the depth of the nation in the rural areas of the nation. And through you know, mobilizing liabilities, which is basically the savings account and the fixed deposit, we want to grow as a strong bank, through which we can you know, mobilize our funds through loans and sell other products. Yes Bank currently is in a very good shape, wherein we are a fully fledged bank, we are offering different products to different segments of customers. And that's it, I guess.
Tom Ollerton 2:47
Well, that Anju, is no small feat to grow a bank in obviously, a very complex and large market. So hopefully with this podcast, we'll get some sense of how you might approach that. But what I'd like to know is in your very varied career, what are the bad recommendations that you've heard over the years? That you were like, oh, I don't agree with that?
Anju Chauhan 3:12
Interesting question. Bad recommendations, I think I have somebody, a lot of people, in fact, have given me recommendation to you know, spend a lot of time on building relationships. I believe that if you're very much passionate about your work, and you are morally upright, and you have good intentions, I don't, I don't think you have to put in lot of efforts to build a relationship. Because when you work with people, and when you learn with them, and you give something to them, that relationship already gets built up. So investing or putting lot of time on building relationship, and I feel that it's, you know, it's something which I believe doesn't always, you know, turn up into the expectations or gives you that result which you were expecting. This is what I think because I honestly do not put lot of efforts in building relationships. But I like to work with interesting people and I like to work as a team member and give my best. At the end of the day you end up having good relationships with your colleagues and with your seniors and of course with your juniors.
Tom Ollerton 4:22
I wasn't expecting you to say that, I love your point of view. Could you give me an example of when you have put effort in a relationship and it wasn't worth it and and how you came to this realization?
Anju Chauhan 4:35
Sure. Sure. Sure. So I... so there are a lot of networking events that happen right. Where as a marketeer, you go and meet people, I have noticed that you know, you end up meeting a lot of people, you exchange a lot of cards, but at the end of the day that relationship is is not a solid relationship. When you work with people and when you work as a team you learn a lot and that itself you know, you don't have to invest additional time to it, you know, you don't have to you know, constantly put in effort from your side it has to be very natural, it has to be, you know, of course, under you know, within the professional environment, but too much of you know, putting effort on that is something I believe is not needed.
Tom Ollerton 5:32
So, what is the best marketing tip that you share with your team most often?
Anju Chauhan 5:43
Oh marketing tip, which I would like to share, actually, I believe that you know, knowing about the business is very important, when we talk about marketing, we always talk about four p's and of course, our segmentation and targeting and all these things, but knowing about the business, the product, what is the sales going on, you know, knowing about how the product is performing in which market the Sales Insight along with the consumer insight is something is very much important. We generally focus on the communication, the you know, consumer segment we are targeting, but knowing about the business is also very important, sometimes the market you know, how the market is behaving, is the product market fit is already there, all these things is also something you know, we should, as a marketeer, we should, you know, put lot of our focus on apart from, you know, the other deliverables which as a marketeer, we have to, you know, deliver.
Tom Ollerton 6:39
And why is that so important?
Anju Chauhan 6:41
It's very much important because I have seen various scenarios where the team is constantly working on creating a new proposition, but they don't understand that market is also evolving, you know, the current consumers are also evolving. So, when you compare your product with, of course, the direct and indirect competitors in the market, understanding your sales numbers, how they are fluctuating, the seasonality, the projections, all these things really help to understand where exactly your product stands, vis-a-vis other competitors' products, and all these insights come directly from your, you know, sales team and your product teams. And I think as a marketeer, we have to be very much in line and, you know, work jointly with all these counterparts, all our counterparts in different teams to understand how well and how you know how best we can represent our product.
Tom Ollerton 7:49
So, Anju, I just want to call out the fact there's quite a lot of noise in the background. And can you explain to the audience why there's so many explosions going on?
Anju Chauhan 7:57
Today is Republic Day, where our constitution was, you know, first time came into being, it's 26th January, and it is India's Republic Day, and people are celebrating since morning. So that is a reason that celebration is still not ended, I believe it's already 9.20.
Tom Ollerton 8:22
Brilliant. Well, look, I don't want to keep you from any celebrations, but I do want to know about your shiny new object. So, your shiny new object is consumer privacy, very hot topic, very big problem for consumers, for brands, is it great for consumers, then who knows? So could you just give us an understanding of why consumer privacy is your shiny new object and why you think it represents the future of the industry?
Anju Chauhan 8:50
So, I believe that respecting consumer privacy is is a shiny object is something which we all as a marketeer should keep our eyes on, because considering the new GDPR rules coming up, India is also following... would be following the GDPR rules of the eurozone and and there are many other, you know, regulations coming up to you know, to ensure the consumer privacy is not breached. At the same time, Google and other companies are talking about removing the third party data and then it becomes very, very, very important for us as a marketeer to find a fine balance between, of course reaching out to consumers making our communication as personalized as possible and targeting our consumer in the best possible way at the same time not breaching their privacy. So, considering that balance is something which if a brand is able to achieve they will rule the markets I believe, as far as consumer, you know, a consumer service or you know, delivering to their promises a brand promise is is, you know, is there. So, I believe that is why it becomes a shiny object for me. Because going forward brands should really focus on respecting consumer privacy.
Tom Ollerton 10:29
So, what does that mean for someone in your position? So you've given me the big picture there. So what's going to change this year, what's going to well, how are you going to have to adapt? What will that mean in your work?
Anju Chauhan 10:41
So, if Google comes up with removing... right now, of course, they have not completely, have kind of postponed their decision of removing the third party data and all all these tools. What makes very important for us is the first party data which the data which we collect as from consumers. So, then it becomes very much important as a marketeer to reach out to our consumers and get the first party data from them directly rather than depending on third party data. So, then, it becomes very much important and challenging for a marketeer to continuously engage with the consumers and deliver them the content, the of course, the services in the best possible way through which the two way communication always remains. So, I believe as a marketeer, it becomes then very challenging for us to make your services and your offerings in such a way that consumers always coming back to you and giving their you know, responses and feedback.
Tom Ollerton 11:57
And so, how do you think brands should approach the fact that the first party data is going to be so much smaller than what was available previously?
Anju Chauhan 12:07
For banks, of course, first party data, since we are a bank, we have access to a lot of data, consumer data, of course, it is, it is you know, very well protected, but we can you know, we can personalize the offerings for our consumers based on their transaction data and all but for other brands, especially for other products, where consumer buys a product, you know, not that frequently, then it of course, it becomes difficult. So various brands, they try to, you know, engage consumers through different routes, through the content marketing, through the influencer marketing, they try to have that communication with their consumer, direct communication with the consumer.
Tom Ollerton 13:00
And so, how would you advise someone who is new to the space? How would you, somebody who's maybe new to the industry, or has moved into a role where consumer privacy is going to be massive? What advice would you give them, what, where's the centers of knowledge that they should be paying attention to?
Anju Chauhan 13:20
So, that is the holy grail, right now, for all the marketers, we are looking at ways to handle the situation and that is a reason the whole decision of removing the third party cookies and other you know, parameters is being postponed all the marketers are still grappling with this whole scenario, but at the end of the day, creating unique properties, where with which you can engage with the consumer becomes very important. At the same time, having a journey wherein a consumer when he's buying a product, it goes through a journey and automating that journey through personalized communication becomes very, very much important, which gives you a kind of stickiness, through which you can constantly communicate with the customer consumer and when that communication channel is there, the feedback loop always remains. So, I think that is a reason all the brands are trying to track all their consumers through their journeys, be it onboarding journey or a consumer lifecycle journey, that is a way where you can actually find out and identify the stage where the consumer is in their, you know, product lifecycle, in their own consumer lifecycle. And accordingly, you can communicate, upsell or cross sell your products.
Tom Ollerton 14:57
So, I don't know how much attention you've paid to the Facebook court case, or Meta court case I should say, in Europe and Ireland specifically. Because my read on that is that the future of the Internet is just going to be like a kind of privacy first one, that every digital interaction you have, there will be a consent trigger, so that it will slow the whole thing down. But how do you think that brands are going to get around targeting their consumers in a way that they won't be able to that they've got in the way that historically they've been very used to, like target on Facebook, very easy, big benefits of that platform, is going to massively change? So how do you think brands are going to get that? Not even, let's not worry about the right message? Or the right time? How are they going to make sure they're getting ads in front of the right people?
Anju Chauhan 15:54
So I'll just take a class example of WhatsApp. So if you see the WhatsApp communication, the WhatsApp channel, which is currently we use in India, you have to take consent from consumer. So through all our means, through all our communication, we try to take consent. And only after that we are able to communicate or promote something on WhatsApp to consumers. And WhatsApp has given you know, great opportunities for businesses to increase their business. And at the same time, ensuring the consumer privacy is maintained. So I think all the brands and of course, social media channels, whether it's Facebook, or Twitter or Instagram, for that matter, they will also follow similar kind of route. And the marketer have to be a little more intelligent in terms of what communication would be preferred by what kind of consumers. Once the consumer sees a value in that information, they definitely and would love to give their consent to, you know, to receive the communication of similar kind.
Tom Ollerton 17:02
And help me understand WhatsApp's role here because I was in Singapore and I think I interacted with like four or five businesses within three days on WhatsApp, the hotel I was staying in, an event I was going to, and it certainly isn't a behavior that we see in Europe. Can you help me understand why WhatsApp is becoming such a prevalent channel in your region why for some reason it hasn't been taken up quite as well in Europe in America?
Anju Chauhan 17:35
The penetration of WhatsApp is very high in India. It's majorly because of the high penetration of mobile phones with internet. So in India, the number of Internet users if you see how they have increased, they were more than 70 to 80% of users, they were mobile first, they never had internet before and they directly move to mobile. So when geo Reliance geo came up with their free internet plan for a limited duration, everyone in India, especially those who were not using internet, they jumped into the bandwagon and they started using that service. After that, because of the stickiness of the product, they remained their customers. And that is a reason all these people for whom the mobile world was the first device through which they access the internet, WhatsApp became their go to channel for them for communication, for interaction with their loved ones, at the same time to do transactions, because yes, WhatsApp business is also something which is growing rapidly in India, where small businesses are doing their businesses through WhatsApp channel. All the brands in India including banks and various FMCG products and various other brands, for them WhatsApp channel is a very important channel. The reason for that is if you talk about only the metrics like open rate and click rate, WhatsApp gives you the highest open rate and highest click rate among all the channels, be it to SMS, emailers or any other channels, social media channels and that is a reason WhatsApp is a very important channel for marketers.
Anju Chauhan 20:30
The other challenge where marketeer were facing initially was because the reach of WhatsApp is very high in India, everybody wants to communicate through WhatsApp. And that is when a challenge came wherein there was a lot of spamming happening. And then WhatsApp came up with this revelation that you have to take consent from customers, if you do not take consent a customer can report you. And if a number is reported multiple times there are chances that you lose that number through which you're communicating to the customer. So a brand or a marketer becomes very, very responsible for communicating to the consumers through the WhatsApp channel. And that is a reason WhatsApp is very, very famous and mostly used in India.
Tom Ollerton 21:24
So unfortunately, we are at the end of the podcast now. So if someone wanted to get in touch with you to discuss consumer privacy, WhatsApp or any of the other things we've talked about today, where would you like them to get in touch with you? And how would you like them to do it?
Anju Chauhan 21:41
Yeah, so I think I am mostly on LinkedIn. I've taken a hiatus from Facebook and Instagram for some time. But I'm available on LinkedIn. You can connect with me.
Tom Ollerton 21:56
And what makes a really good LinkedIn message to you?
Anju Chauhan 22:00
Oh just say hi and refer my podcast that is good enough.
Tom Ollerton 22:07
Thank you so much for your time.
Anju Chauhan 22:10
Thank you, Tom. Thank you very much.
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