The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) has announced the release of three television commercial films starring cricket legends Sachin Tendulkar and Mithali Raj to address each of the three recognised key fears affecting investors psyche – market volatility, new-age digital trends, and unregulated schemes.
According to a shared study conducted by the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) and the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPFA), which examined 15 scams related to unrestricted and illegal arrangements, over 10 crore Indians have been defrauded by the top 15 pump-and-dump Ponzi schemes over the last three decades, resulting in an average loss of 15.27 lakhs per victim. They all promised unrealistic returns on investment, which drew in naive investors.
Two of the three new TV commercials educate small savers on the dangers of investing in doubtful schemes and new-age trends, while also encouraging them to switch to systemised and governed investment avenues such as Mutual Funds.
The first film in the campaign, starring Tendulkar, emphasises how uncertainty is an inherent and engrained feature of stock markets and encourages investors to concentrate on their objectives and stay invested. Market volatility usually causes investors to panic and eventually wind up redeeming their investments, leading to a loss or reduced profits.
The second film depicts how a young investor, swayed by social media, invests in cutting-edge digital trends and loses his life savings. Tendulkar explains why we should avoid overrated digital trends and instead focus on a regulated investment option such as Mutual Funds.
The third film, starring Mithali Raj, focuses on the issue of unregulated deposit schemes that guarantee double returns and naive investors, particularly women, falling prey to them. Mithali tries to explain to her friend, who is a victim of a fly-by-night operator’s scheme, that Mutual Funds are suitable for frequent savers like her because they have been time-tested and dependable for years.
A Balasubramanian, Chairman, AMFI, said, “We at AMFI, want to educate small savers to shift towards the formal and regulated mode of investments and opt for Mutual Funds as the preferred investment avenue. Last financial year the Mutual Fund Industry added 1.09 crore new Mutual Fund investors. A significant section of retail savers voiced their concerns about continued market volatility in the light of various global geopolitical events. We wanted a voice of reason, someone who people trust to address the concern and educate them that it is best to ignore short term volatility and focus on long-term goals. Hence, we chose Sachin Tendulkar, our brand ambassador for this.”
N S Venkatesh, Chief Executive, AMFI, said, “We realized that a lot of young investors were swayed by the returns offered by new-age digital trends, without realizing that these were unregulated. Many of them burnt their hands and their hard-earned money. Also, for a long time, women investors from semi-urban and rural India, have been defrauded by fly-by-night operators who run dubious deposit schemes promising very high returns. We wanted to address both these audiences and warn them of the pitfalls and ask them to choose a very well regulated investment option like Mutual Funds. Sachin and Mithali, given their significant contribution to Indian cricket, come across as the most trusted and popular cricket stars, hence we thought it was best to use them to convey these important messages.”