Angry babies dot the country skyline

Move away angry birds; angry babies are here! Hoardings across prominent locations in the country attract your attention with photos of grumpy babies plastered on them.

Private life insurer, IDBI Federal Life Insurance has launched its humorous, yet hard-hitting, outdoor campaign to promote its child plans’ category – Childsurance. The outdoor campaign, like the other campaigns from the company, adds a bit of fun element to drive home a point. The campaign spans 105 cities and towns in the country.

Explaining the objective of this campaign, Mr. Aneesh Khanna, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, IDBI Federal Life Insurance, says: “The angry baby photos attract your attention and lead you to an important message – children will not look this cute when they are 18 if their dreams are not fulfilled for lack of financial planning! “

“With the cost of education  ballooning year after year, it is important that young parents systematically plan for the future needs of their little ones,” Mr Khanna says and explains: “ The best part about this campaign is that while it gives young parents a gentle nudge, it does that by bringing a smile on their faces. Our insurance solutions for children effectively address most of the concerns related to securing their future. The message of angry babies is so strong and striking at the same time that we thought an outdoor campaign would effectively communicate this thought. We think it’s a clutter breaking idea and takes a complete departure from regular advertising featuring babies.” Amitabh Agnihotri and Sameer Sojwal, Senior Creative Director duo at Ogilvy and Mather, Mumbai, have designed the campaign in association with IDBI Federal.

Says Mr Agnihotri: “There couldn't be a more arresting idea than using babies to grab the attention of young parents. The category of insurance is inundated with emotional appeals, advertising that literally pleas for better financial planning. We were clear that we had to stay away from the clutter and create something absolutely fresh. The most fun part of the campaign was shooting with the babies and getting their cute-angry expressions.”

On a serious note, Mr Sojwal says: “Financial planning for a child's future is probably the most important message to convey to young parents; dealing with the wrath of a child's failed future can be a daunting experience. This is the reality of life, but humorously put through the Childsurance campaign."

Says Pratap Bose, Founding Partner and Chairman of The Social Street: “The Childsurance campaign from IDBI Federal is indeed an intriguing one, as the cute angry babies immediately draw your attention. Large scale formats in the OOH space, enables the imagery of the visual to be disproportionately large, so as to draw attention and drive home the point that your child’s insurance is certainly not something that you can take for granted.’’

Social Street executed the campaign in 105 cities, with more than 900 billboards Pan India in Phase-I. The team planned and shortlisted each and every media considering the creative, even the way the baby looked towards the traffic as per the positioning of each site. The beauty of the outdoor is that you can use the creative suitable to each and every medium, which no other medium offers. They have tried to explore this effectively in this campaign. In phase one they integrated the campaign with radio, and in the phase two the company is planning to take it a step further with on-ground activation and digital.