Abhishek Gupta on giving marketing the vernacular edge across geographies

In keeping with its customer-centric commitment to innovate, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance has unveiled another comprehensive insurance plan. Named Edelweiss Tokio Life ‘Active Income Plan’, the plan offers guaranteed income, flexibility and cash bonus, allowing customers to meet both short-term and long-term financial goals, especially under current economic conditions and volatility. Its Family Income Benefit option ensures one’s family’s dreams are met by continuing to provide planned benefits, even in case of any eventuality. 

To promote this new product the company has signed on actor Sonu Sood as the brand ambassador for its latest product campaign, Edelweiss Tokio Life ‘Active Income’. 

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In conversation with Adgully, Abhishek Gupta, CMO, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, speaks at length about the marketing strategy in times of crisis, the growing importance of insurance, Sonu Sood as a brand fit and much more. 

What was the key objective and purpose behind your latest campaign featuring Sonu Sood? 

The core objective of this campaign was to underline the repetitive nature of uncertainties and how everyone needs to create a back-up source of income, to safeguard dreams and aspirations of their loved ones. Our past generations have experienced crises like pandemic, recession, and more, and there is a high likelihood that future generations will also see such events years later. So, there is an undeniable need to ensure that the joy and simple pleasures of life, as depicted in the ad film, are not compromised because of such uncertainties. We must all start evaluating the need for protecting our families from such emergent situations by buying financial instruments like income plans. 

While this product was conceived much before the pandemic hit us, we believe it a great fit for the current customer needs. People are increasingly realising the importance of protection and long-term savings as household income has been hit severely in the recent months. So, the purpose of this entire campaign is not to simply promote a product, but also the underlying need that may still be unexpressed or latent in the case of many viewers. 

While Sonu Sood has earned a lot of praise for helping out stranded migrants reach their homes in the early period of the lockdown, there was also some controversy around it. Despite that, are you convinced that he is the right brand ambassador for your campaign, and do you feel there is a right brand connect? 

Every public figure and their actions are open for public interpretation. As a brand, we believe that Sonu Sood’s recent public service during such an extraordinary time perfectly coincides with our brand motto, which is making #ZindagiUnlimited for our customers and stakeholders. For every influencer collaboration that we have undertaken in the past or will do in the future, alignment in beliefs and values is critical for us and we will never do away with that benchmarking. 

Who are you targeting this campaign? Can you elaborate on the profile of your audience in terms of demographics and income? Which are the markets that you are focusing on? 

Through this campaign, we will be targeting an audience between the ages of 30 and 50 years, as they are typically in the prime of their working years and the main income earners in several households. Our target audience is gender agnostic, because while men are usually the ones who buy insurance, women play a key role in influencing that decision for their families. Our campaign is live across all 93 cities across India where we have our branches present. 

Within the age group mentioned, we have structured the campaign to target our audience across different life stages or segments. For instance, young parents evaluating legacy planning, an individual considering retirement planning, a businessperson creating income stability, etc. 

What was your brief given to the creative agency? And how did the idea germinate to leverage Sonu Sood? Did your agency recommend Sonu Sood?

Sonu Sood has been in the news for quite some time now and has emerged as a real-life hero for thousands of people during this time of crisis. As mentioned before, he has enabled several people in making their #ZindagiUnlimited, with a simple act of kindness. So, we had our eyes set on collaborating with him for a while now. When we decided on launching the Active Income Plan, we identified a seamless synergy between Sonu Sood’s brand, our brand beliefs and the product. 

His work has also exposed the lack of financial preparedness among Indians and the urgent need to create social security for all, which is also the underlying message we wanted to deliver. So, it all came together perfectly to make this a winning proposition for all involved. We wanted to keep the tonality positive, make it relatable and infuse gentle humour to the campaign, and the film has brought out all these elements beautifully. 

Sonu Sood might not have a uniform celebrity status pan India. How do you plan to handle your communication for the Southern markets, where people connect more with the local celebrities there?

Sonu Sood is a relatively known face in India, a credit to his roles in some blockbuster Hindi movie franchises. He, in fact, started his acting stint with South Indian movies and has been a part of many Tamil, and Telugu films over the years. He continues to act in South Indian films and wields a noteworthy influence in the region. In fact, he has become more of a household name now after his work during the lockdown. He has become a real-life hero along with a reel one. 

As part of the overall campaign, we will also promote the product through channel marketing with key partners across the country and use exhaustive PR efforts to create consideration for the product as well as the category. 

Now coming to the product, what is your key differentiation as against your competition? What are the key features of this new product and the compelling reasons that will attract someone to purchase your new product?

The key differentiation of Active Income Plan is that it is a comprehensive income solution suited for all ages and life stages. It can be a three-generation income plan, which works for a grandparent, a parent and a child or, it can be your retirement planner to ensure long-term coverage. It offers guaranteed income, flexibility and cash bonus, allowing customers to meet both short-term and long-term financial goals, especially during a situation like the ongoing volatility. In fact, it has become the fastest selling product in the history of our company, which indicates a burgeoning need among insurance customers for such income solutions. 

Customer centricity is pivotal for any financial brand. How is that being tackled and how are you handling the grievances of your customers?

Customer Centricity is one of our organisational values and we endeavour to include customers in our decision-making processes. In fact, we have created a framework internally, called CX-ASSURED, which stands for Accessible, Same Side, Upfront, Removes Limitations, Easy to Deal with and Dependable. These values are aimed at shaping employee behaviour into thinking and acting in a customer centric manner. 

In fact, at inception, we have built a need analysis tool called Vijaypath to bring in objectivity as well as customer centricity into the selling process. Our sales force continues to use it and it has helped our customers understand their own needs and therefore the products they are purchasing, in a more effective manner. This has helped us built robust persistency, over the years and a long-term relationship with our customers. 

In the insurance business, your business partners play a key role in promoting the policies. How is that happening now, as most of the agents are working from home and how are you engaging with them and keeping their morale high as the last quarter has been very sluggish?

The ongoing pandemic has certainly created a challenging environment, especially for our distribution partners. Life insurance counselling and selling was more of a traditional process, rather than a digital one, until 3 months ago. 

Edelweiss Tokio Life was among the few companies to enact work from home about a week before the government announced its lockdown. This gave us enough time to test remote working for essential functions and also plan future course of action towards adapting to the new normal. About a week into the lockdown, we launched a digital learning solution called ‘Dial for Success’, which helped our field force learn about digital customer interactions. This, among several other initiatives, has helped Edelweiss Tokio Life buck the trend and maintain a positive growth momentum in a challenging environment. Our individual APE has grown 21 per cent year on year in the first quarter of the year. 

This solution-oriented approach, along with leadership connect and increased communication, have helped us immensely in keeping morale high across our channels. 

What is your media strategy for this new campaign? Are you considering the traditional media to raise awareness or are you depending on digital to deliver your reach to promote the product?

The marketing strategy adopted for this product is a combination of both paid and earned media. We want to primarily build consideration for the product and for the category of savings and income solutions. As detailed above, our digital strategy is more performance-led and we are engaging with several customers across varied life stages. We are using earned media to build a positive aura around the brand and our product and services. This will also play a crucial role in building credibility in the regional markets, as local media has a strong influence, especially in the Southern markets. 

We will have also started undertaking significant sales enablement efforts by creating DIY tools for our sales force, wherein they have ready, customisable collaterals available for customer interactions. Vernacular communication is becoming increasingly important in augmenting marketing efforts across geographies. With this context, we are also making relevant product material and other collaterals available in 8 languages. And, we are already seeing overwhelming uptake for the product.