Ageas Federal Life Insurance recently launched its recent campaign, ‘Cradle to Crease’ with cricketing maestro, Sachin Tendulkar. The campaign highlights the significance of early financial planning for parents against the background of Tendulkar’s journey from childhood to his debut and cricketing journey. To highlight the life journey, the campaign has used technology to showcase the progression of Tendulkar’s journey. Commenting on the insight for this campaign Erum Kidwai, Senior Vice President & Head - Marketing, Ageas Federal Life Insurance says, “We at Aegis Federal Life Insurance believe in empowering our customers to live a life and lifestyle of their choice and become future fearless. This inspired us to come up with this new concept. The focus of our research was to find out what millennials look at when they invest or are thinking about investing decisions.”
He continues, “An interesting fact that emerged was that there was a perception that there are certain time slots in the year when you need to invest, for financial planning, taxation purposes or for insurance plan etc. This is exactly what is not true because insurance as an instrument investment is for all seasons, all ages, and all age groups. We wanted to debunk this myth that there's a specific age or time frame when you need to buy insurance. That's why the film keeps on reiterating the fact, what is the right time? There is no right time. The right time is now.” He adds, “The right time to invest and buy an insurance plan is when you, according to your needs in your life, are aware that you have a goal or an objective coming up in the next five, 10, 15, 20 years, and you start planning for it.”
The film has extensively used technology – AI and deepfake technology – to de-age Tendulkar and his voice from his childhood till the till the time he made his debut in Pakistan when he was a 16-year-old. A big challenge in executing the campaign was in finding the right collaborative agency who can provide the right technology. Kidwai says that it was “a humongous task” for Ageas Federal Life Insurance and its creative agency – VML, to screen multiple agencies to decide if the output will be up to the mark. Another challenge was selecting the right kids, across different age groups – to represent young Tendulkar in the ad. States Kidwai, “It was a challenge throughout but we are quite happy with the results that have come up. With the insight garnered, we have tried to demystify a complex topic like financial planning.”
Tendulkar has had a long association with Ageas Federal Life Insurance (erstwhile known as IDBI Federal Life Insurance Company) and Kidwai says that the brand has benefitted a lot from his presence, especially when the brand transitioned to its current name in 2020. Taking its association with sports forward, Ageas Federal Life Insurance has made significant investments in sports such as marathons, Indian para badminton and cricket academies such as Dilip Vengsarkar Foundation. Kidwai says, “We have always been a proponent of both physical and financial fitness. Both these things come hand in hand for us. You can only be satisfied if you're physically fit. And we want a fitter India. That has always been our stance right from the very beginning, a fitter India, a happier India, a satisfied India, and a financially stable India.”
The proliferation and penetration of internet has changed the way brands interact with their consumer and providing brands an effective way to reach consumers. He says, “As a brand, it provides me an opportunity to touch base with the customer at the smallest cost per customer per lead. Earlier, if I would have to reach him, I would have taken recourse to conventional media like television, print, outdoors, which any which ways for any brand of any level, there's a limitation to the expenditure that they can do on brand and marketing.”
Increased internet penetration has also allowed brands to develop content segment-wise and target and tailor the communication accordingly. Kidwai says, “I can track the content consumption, which has given me as a marketer, a bigger responsibility to get the maximum bang for the buck that I'm spending. There is an increased emphasis on the content marketing, however I have to come up with relevant content for the different categories and segments of customers.” He adds, “For the last four or five years, we have launched our campaigns through digital and 60% to 70% of our budget goes in digital and social media marketing. This is the means through which we can reach our customers, provide them with the relevant content, hyper-localize the content as much as possible, and not just carpet bomb. Then we obviously measure what our campaigns have done when it comes to the usage of marketing budgets. That has been the sea change as far as the media landscape is concerned at Ageas Federal Life Insurance and across India.”
