Why don’t Indian finance brands think of women as more than just wealth?

“Our logo feels like we have left it behind” – was our one line brief for reimagining Svasti Microfinance’s brand identity. This would need to translate across its logo, signage, comms, stationary, offices, name tags, app interface, digital and paperwork iconography.

Our initial semiotic scan of the category made one thing clear – women had been typecast as ‘Laxmi’, the goddess of wealth. As a complete contrast to this, we met Svasti’s women in person when we went on shadowing expeditions with the company’s CRMs.

Svasti’s women were of many profiles – married, with and without children, single, widowed, abandoned, with and without families. But every one of them had one thing in common – they felt much more like Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and creativity – the source of a household rather than just a resource in it like Laxmi / wealth is. The ‘kolam’ (rangoli) identity we created for Svasti is inspired by these ‘Ghar Ki Saraswatis’ (household Saraswatis) and the holy motifs that commonly mark their doorways.

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hyprlocl