Muthoot has grown digital investments from 10% to 20% of our total media mix: Abhinav Iyer

In 2020, Muthoot Finance launched its "Sunheri Soch" campaign, a radio campaign in partnership with Red FM A key focal point for the Gold Loan NBFC has been to bring about an attitudinal transformation and shift in the minds of people to unlock the value of the sentimental asset, which is typically lying idle for a major part of the year, and how ‘gold can work as hard for you as you do for your dreams”, for the individual. This strategy used was to showcase on real-life stories of customers who became successful with the help of a gold loan.

“In India, nothing sells better than real-life storytelling of customers. Testimonial campaigns are extremely powerful, especially in a category like ours. It's a niche customer segment where people pledge their gold - their household and used jewelry - which has a lot of emotion attached. When people pledge gold, they have to have a very high degree of trust in the brand that they pledge it with.” says Abhinav Iyer, Senior General ManagerMarketing & Strategy, Muthoot Finance. The campaign was backed by Muthoot Finance brand ambassadors, Amitabh Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit, who narrated the narrated stories for the "Sunheri Soch" campaign.

 Among the many Sunehri Soch stories, two hold a special place for Iyer. One is of Manisha from Pune, from season three, a mother whose daughter dreamt of representing India in an international shooting championship. When traditional financial institutions turned her away, she turned to Muthoot Finance. Within minutes, her gold loan was approved just in time for her daughter’s registration. The result? Her daughter won gold for India.

Another story hails from Delhi a tale of two sisters who pledged their jewelry to build a home for their brother, who had raised them alone. “These are heartwarming stories of gratitude, love, and courage,” says Iyer. “They redefine what financial empowerment really means.”

From Sunheri Soch To Sunhera RoI & Business

For Muthoot, this campaign literally struck gold for the company as Sunehri Soch’s first season generated ?148 crore in gold loan disbursements. Season two scaled to ?750 crore and by season three, over ?2,000 crore was crossed. While there was over a two-year break between season 2 and season 3 – launched in February 2025 – season 4 has been rolled out in quick succession. Iyer says, “We did season three in Q4 of last financial year, and launched season four in Q2 of the current financial year, in a gap of a couple of months.”

Another change has been in the partnerships. While season one and season two saw the NBFC, season 3 saw the partnership with two radio stations - Radio City and Radio Mirchi – with the campaign also going vernacular. For season 4, Muthoot Finance has again partnered with two radio stations - Red FM and Big FM, bringing regional flavours to the forefront through influencers, like singer Sudesh Bhosale (Marathi), RJ Raunac (Hindi), actor Jisshu Sengupta (Bengali), and actor Manoj Joshi (Gujarati), also narrating stories, in addition to Madhuri Dixit.

“12 stories have been narrated by the four influencers with Madhuri Dixit narrating five stories, so in total 17 stories. We wanted every Indian from different geographies to relate to at least one story because every household has a Sunehri Soch moment waiting to be told,” says Iyer.

Another twist in season four, is to cover a wider cross-section of customer base.” “This season, it’s not a five or seven-week burst,” Iyer explains. “It’s an always-on strategy. Every fortnight, we’re launching a new story from different states, in different languages, through diverse voices till the end of the financial year. In the next financial year, we'll continue with this pattern to reach out to more geographies and bring out stories from different parts of the country. We're trying to diversify the customer base, the story base, so that something relates to everyone.”

And for the benchmark set for season 4, he says, “The benchmark is definitely to surpass last year's achievement convincingly. We have a very high benchmarks set internally and the idea is to set a much higher benchmarks in the remaining six months. The goal is to make Sunehri Soch not just a campaign, but a way of life.”

Evolving the Media Mix: From TV to Digital Gold

Commenting on how Muthoot’s media mix has evolved, Iyer reveals, “We’ve grown our digital investments from 10% to 20% of our total media mix. TV and print still hold 30–35% each, with 15% going to BTL (below-the-line) activations and radio form a strong support system.” Digital has opened doors for performance marketing, hyperlocal targeting, and social storytelling, while connected TV (CTV) now falls under their digital umbrella. “Our objective remains ROI-centric,” he says. “Every penny is measured through our CRM, every lead, every walk-in, every call. We ensure that our marketing spends work as smartly as our gold does. There’s always a threshold beyond that it’s the law of diminishing returns. We optimize and recalibrate to make our investments meaningful.”

Typically, for gold loan companies, the festive season in Q3 often means a slowdown as Iyer explains, “The festival season is a little challenging for gold loan companies because people prefer to wear their gold rather than pledge it.” Despite this seasonal dip, Muthoot Finance turned the tide last year. Iyer shares proudly, “Q3FY25 and our nine-month performance last year was historic for us as a brand and this year, we’re already on a similar trajectory.”

Indeed, as Muthoot’s consolidated assets under management (AUM) grew 34% year-on-year to ?1.11 lakh crore, with standalone gold loan AUM rising by 37% year-on-year to ?97,000 crore. The company even crossed ?1 trillion in market capitalization, with net profit surging by 89.6%, registering ?2046 crore net profit, in the first quarter that ended June 30, 2025. He says, “We have high standards for Q3FY26 and are geared up to put all-out efforts to achieve that.

 Talking on future media investments Iyer notes, “We're not looking at increasing our marketing budgets as we have sufficient budgets earmarked. We will make investments and recalibrate them based on our growth pattern over the last two quarters. With our media partners, we will see how we can invest it more prudently, wisely, and make better investments.