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Ashutosh (Ashu) is diagnosed with autism at a very young age. However, his father, a single parent, aspires to best education for the special child, even though he himself loses his job. How he deals with the changing circumstances in their lives forms the rest of the story.
This is not the plot of a short film, but a long-format campaign ('Khud Ko Kar Buland', which refers to the idiom of holding one's head high) by Birla Sun Life Insurance. The ad is geared to convey the importance of insurance in one's life.
Insurance companies have tugged at the emotional chords of the audience before by depicting human relationships, frailties, and hence, the need for insurance. But of late, they seem to have discovered the relevance of long-format ads to make their pitch and no less than three of them have hit upon the bond of the parent and child for it. Long ads by life insurance companies such as Birla Sun Life Insurance, HDFC Life and Tata AIA Life depict situations where a parent has a challenge to overcome to safeguard the child's life. While there is no direct reference to any insurance product, these bring in the role of insurance in such candid situations.
HDFC Life's 'Apne Ko Apne Dam Pe Jeena Sikhao' (Teach your loved ones to be self-reliant) has a father-daughter trope where the daughter pursues her dream of dancing. The fact that she is differently-abled, and needs a special titanium limb that is expensive, are not hurdles for the dad who claims he has planned everything. It goes on to imply that the father's plan includes the child's welfare even when the chief earning member, ie. he, is not around.
Ajay Kakar, chief marketing officer, financial services, Aditya Birla Group explains, "Across our financial services business, we have a single marketing agenda which - to provoke self-realisation about the benefits of financial services. After the ads with Yuvraj Singh (cricketer) to raise awareness about cancer, we wish to bring out extraordinary stories of ordinary men."
Santosh Padhi, co-founder and chief creative officer, Taproot India, the agency for the Birla Sun Life Insurance campaign, says, "There are certain challenges as far as insurance advertising goes. There has to be emotion, and financial planning for the future has to be there. We had to work with these factors in mind and delivered a film that had all these aspects."
Kakar says that the long format was needed to portray the father-son relationship through 15 years of their life.
For HDFC Life, its recent campaign is the next big effort after almost five years since the launch of the 'Sar Utha Ke Jiyo' (Hold your head high, and live) series had come out. The premise has not been entirely vacated as the new ad still says that families should not be dependent on outsiders.
Sanjay Tripathy, senior executive vice president (marketing, products, digital and e-commerce), HDFC Life, says that apart from financial independence, the campaign also looks into emotional independence. "Storytelling through this medium (long-format) made for better engagement," he says.
Raj Deepak Das, chief creative officer, Leo Burnett, which made the HDFC Life ad, says, "HDFC Life has a base line called Sar Utha Ke Jio. In many respects, this line was the goal post for us. There were a number of iterations that we presented of how the above line could be translated into reality. If you ask me about insurance advertising, yes, emotion has to be part of a film. And many a times, it is not about plain-vanilla advertising, it is about how you live the brand and how you integrate the brand into the lives of people. You will see more of this as you go forward."
While insurance companies are among the highest-spending advertisers, insurance penetration is very low. According to Kakar, 40 per cent of the insurance business happens in January-March, the tax-saving season. Insurance is still a push product in the country. Life insurance penetration, calculated as a percentage of the country's GDP stands at merely 3.1 per cent. There has been a decline in insurance penetration due to drop in policy renewals.
Hence, companies that have not been too aggressive in advertising have also taken a step towards active branding. Tata AIA Life Insurance (Tata AIA Life) recently launched the first in a campaign series that attempts to remind the viewer of a simple truth - We live for the good of our loved ones.
The campaign breaks with a four-minute film titled 'Daddy aur Zooey' - a story of a diminutive father and his bond with his son. The short father tries various ways to engage with his son to gain his acceptance and the story explores the ups and downs of the process.
Ravi Vishwanath, deputy CEO of Tata AIA Life, says, "We want to remind the people a fact, often forgotten in the cluttered category, that life insurance is nothing but doing right for your family and 'making good happen' for them. The film depicts bitter-sweet moments of life that one cherishes." Tata AIA wants the campaign to signal a complete revamp of its brand and a stronger brand identity by making insurance more human, more everyday.
Chirag Bhasin, creative director of JWT that created the ad, says life insurance tries too hard to be all things it is not.
"The campaign goes back to the basics to remind us - Apno ka accha, yehi hai life insurance (Making good happen for loved ones is what life insurance is about)," Bhasin says. As the insurance companies try hard to put across the message of having an insurance policy, brand experts say that sometimes emotional advertising might not click in the long-format category.
Manish Bhatt, founder-director, Scarecrow Communications, says insurance advertising has limitations. "There has been a series of ads that has played this emotional card and long-format advertising demands that. But given the surfeit of such commercials, I am not sure what is the impact in the end," he says.
