Muthoot Finance Launches ‘Sunheri Soch’ Radio Campaign By Amitabh Bachchan

Muthoot Finance, India’s No.1 Most Trusted Financial Services Brand and India’s largest gold loan NBFC has entered into a unique partnership with RED FM, one of India’s largest and much awarded private radio networks to launch a series of real-life inspirational stories that break stigmas around gold loans in India. With ‘Muthoot Finance Sunheri Soch’ campaign, the financial services conglomerate brings highly successful stories of various common men & women who dreamt big and made their dreams come true by availing gold loans from Muthoot Finance.

Sunheri Soch aims at encouraging and educating masses about actively adopting gold loans and realising their dreams. The campaign is a series of inspiring, real-life stories of common people who took a gold loan from Muthoot Finance and moved ahead in life. Muthoot Finance’s brand ambassador Shri Amitabh Bachchan beautifully narrates these stories in an all-new avatar. As part of this campaign, a melodious Sunheri Soch anthem was launched with Red FM’s top RJs saluting the courage of these successful people who have achieved their dreams in highly challenging circumstances. Sunheri Soch is a celebration of their achievement, and Muthoot Finance is proud to be a catalyst in this journey of millions of Indians.

Commenting on the association, Mr. Alexander George Muthoot, Deputy Managing Director, The Muthoot Group said, “We have always launched path-breaking campaigns that have brought attitudinal transformation in the lives of people. Gold loans have huge potential as Indian households have 26000 tons of gold & just 2-3% of this is monetised by way of gold loans. We at Muthoot Finance are the guardians of trust who empower society to realise the power of their dreams by unlocking the true value of their emotional currency. Our Sunheri Soch campaign brings inspirational real-life stories to life to help common people realise their dreams”

Mr.Abhinav Iyer, General Manager, Marketing & Strategy, Muthoot Finance added, “Sunheri Soch is a series of life-transforming stories that can inspire a million others. As humans-beings, we feel inspired by great success stories. With a little help from Muthoot Finance, these are people who realised their dreams. With +2.5 Lac customers being served every day, it wasn’t easy to hand-pick a few success stories. Mr Bachchan’s incomparable voice and amazing delivery has just brought in the magical touch to this campaign”

Commenting on this association, Ms. Nisha Narayanan, COO & Director, Red FM and Magic FM said, “We are excited to announce our collaboration with Muthoot Finance, one of the most trusted financial services brand in India to feature inspirational success stories and break all the prevailing apprehensions associated with gold loans. With deeper engagement being the primary need of clients, we have taken a different approach in sharing some of the extraordinary real stories of Muthoot Finance Gold Loan customers”

Ms.Ruchi Mathur, Senior VP, Mindshare said:

“Magic happens when real life and storytelling come together. Especially in times like these when consumers and listeners are looking for something positive to latch on to. With this idea, we are not selling a brand or a product, but we are bringing hope to the many who have a dream, but just need the inspiration and a little help. We at Mindshare Content+ are proud to partner Muthoot Finance Sunheri Soch and hope this platform will bring the change we feel it can”,

About Muthoot Finance:

Muthoot Finance is the flagship company of The Muthoot Group which has 20 diversified business divisions. With 5000+ branches, the Group serves over 2.5 Lac customers every day. Muthoot Finance is also India's largest gold loan NBFC and India’s No.1 Most Trusted Financial Services Brand, according to the Brand Trusted Report. It is a reputed ‘Systemically Important Non-deposit taking NBFC’. As part of the core business, Muthoot Finance provides loans secured against household gold jewellery at highly affordable rates and amazing product features. Globally, the Group has presence across, USA, UK, UAE, Costa Rica and Sri Lanka. In the recently announced financial results for FY20, Muthoot Finance posted a record Net Profit of Rs. 3,168 Crores (a 50% growth over FY19). The Consolidated Assets Under Management (AUM) grew by 22% for the same period and stood at Rs. 46,800 Crores.

Self rechargeable battery from Nokia soon

Nokia is in the process of developing a battery which can recharge itself when the phone has been kept on the standby mode. This technology will end the worries of the people, as the standby mode is always referred as a curse to the planet, reports the Guardian.

"A new prototype charging system from the company is able to power itself on nothing more than ambient radio waves- the weak TV, radio and mobile phone signals that permanently surround us. The power harvested is small but it is almost enough to power a mobile in standby mode indefinitely without ever needing to plug it into the mains," said Markku Rouvala, one of the researchers who have developed the device at the Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, U.K.

The Oyster cards used by the commuters in London are of the same phenomenon, powering themselves from radio waves emitted by the reader devices as they are swiped. And similarly old crystal radio sets and more recently modern radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, which are increasingly used in shipping and as antitheft devices, are powered wholly by radio waves.

"The Nokia's prototype instead of harvesting tiny amounts of power (a few microwatts) from dedicated transmitters, it is able to collect relatively large amounts of discarded power around a thousand times more, even from miles away. Individually the energy available in each of these signals is miniscule. But by harvesting radio waves across a wide range of frequencies it all adds up," said Rouvala.

Similar kind of wireless transfer of energy was first demonstrated by Nikola Tesla in 1893, who was so taken up with the idea that he had attempted to build an intercontinental transmission tower to send power through wireless across the Atlantic. The antenna and the receiver circuit of Nokia are designed to pick up a wide range of frequencies - from 500 megahertz to 10 gigahertz - and convert the electromagnetic waves into an electrical current, as the second circuit is designed to feed this current to the battery to recharge it.

This will ensure that these circuits use less power than the amount that is being received,. Till now, the researchers have been able to harvest up to five milliwatts. Nokia's short-term goal is to get in excess of 20 milliwatts, which is enough power to keep a phone in standby mode indefinitely without having to recharge it. But this would not be enough to actually use the phone to make or receive a call. The hope is to be able to get as much as 50 milliwatts, which would be sufficient to slowly recharge the battery.

"Radio frequency power falls off exponentially with distance," said Steve Beeby, an expert in harvesting ambient energy at the University of Southampton. "It would be a remarkable achievement," Beeby added.

Agencies

Is Ad spend moving into internet from TV, radio?

Global economic slowdown has led to cut in media advertisement spending for sure, but internet company Yahoo is seeing a silver-lining.

And in some sense, recession in advance markets may be a blessing in disguise for such companies as advertisers shift ad spend from television and radio to internet.

Yahoo's Co-Founder and Chief David Filo confirmed the trend. "Advertising. while there may be slow-down....it's not going away", he told reporters on the sidelines of Yahoo India R & D-organised second Open Hack Day in India here.

There are other factors, he said. "People consume increasingly more and more internet", as opposed to television and radio, he argued. "People are moving that attention (from television and radio) to internet; that shift is going to increase (further)".

Particularly in times of economic slowdown, advertisers are shifting their ad spend to internet, Filo said. Internet advertising is "measurable" and, so, advertisers are "much more amenable" (to put more dollars into internet advertising)".

CEO of Yahoo India R & D, Sharad Sharma, said broadband access in India needs to improve, while PC penetration needs to be much faster. "Internet growth is modest (in India)", he said.

Agencies