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31August 2006
Mumbai
India’s mutual fund and stock market has witnessed phenomenal growth over the last few years. With the entrance of new fund houses and the introduction of new funds into the market, investors are now being presented with a broad array of Mutual Fund choices. Fund houses with the greatest brand equity are sure to capture the biggest spending investors.
According to the latest ACNielsen | Winning Brands Mutual Fund study, SBI Mutual Fund (3.9) has the strongest Brand Equity Index of all funds in the study, followed by ICICI prudential as the closest second (3.7), while last year’s winner, UTI, slipped into third position (2.8). (Refer chart 1)
In its second year, and a premier study tracking the brand performance of various mutual fund houses, ACNielsen | Winning Brands Mutual Fund surveyed 1,652 investors in person, across 10 cities in India.
High brand equity usually leads to high levels of usage or preference. As the study reveals, SBI MF emerged as the most favoured brand, followed by ICICI Prudential and UTI.
“Our Winning Brands model identifies three major drivers of brand equity, namely awareness, consideration and image. In the past, India’s mutual fund market has been a relatively undeveloped category driven simply by awareness, but it has now taken a step forward, where consideration is also now playing a key role in driving brand equity. Our study found consideration to be the most important driver of choice this time round,” commented Nipa Parekh, champion of Financial Services Research at ACNielsen India.
“With such keen competition today, mutual fund brands need to work harder on the quality of awareness to drive consideration. Creating media noise is just not enough to secure strong brand equity. Indian investors are more sophisticated than ever, and are now looking at their overall comfort levels with fund houses. It is therefore very important that any media noise a brand creates is driving consideration levels, as well as saliency.”
Both SBI MF (0.57) and Prudential ICICI (0.52) have strong ‘awareness to consideration’ ratios, indicating that the level of awareness created by their composite marketing activity is working positively towards conversion from knowing to considering.
Higher return (58%) and opportunities to claim tax benefits (54%) in certain mutual fund schemes (ELSS) tilt investors towards mutual funds. Equity-linked savings schemes are reportedly popular amongst Indian investors because of the dual advantage they carry of tax savings as well as high returns.
“Tax benefits attract many investors towards these schemes. Even conservative investors are willing to take chances by investing in these high-risk equity funds, to avail themselves of the tax benefits they offer,” added Parekh
Investments in Mutual Funds are the most favorable option for 71 percent of respondents who are currently investing in the funds/stocks market, followed by Life Insurance (72%). (Refer Chart 2)
About ACNielsen | Winning Brands Mutual Fund
ACNielsen | Winning Brands Mutual Fund is as a brand tracking study designed to assess the performance of a variety of Mutual Fund brands. ACNielsen | Winning Brands is a comprehensive brand equity management practice that delivers strategies for driving future brand equity. This is the second publication of the Winning Brands Mutual Fund study.
About ACNielsen
ACNielsen, a VNU business, is the world's leading marketing information provider. Offering services in more than 100 countries, the unit provides measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics and consumer attitudes and behavior. Clients rely on ACNielsen's market research, proprietary products, analytical tools and professional service to understand competitive performance, to uncover new opportunities and to raise the profitability of their marketing and sales campaigns. To learn more, visit www.acnielsen.co.in
Chart 1:
Brand Equity Index
Chart 2:
Investments – Current, Past & Future
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