HDFC Life Cancer Care opts for a tranquil upmarket campaign

HDFC Life Cancer Care campaign launched about a month back is tranquil in its execution and simple in its message – Cancer is an expensive disease and you must have a backup in place in the unfortunate case of it landing at your doorstep. HDFC Life Cancer Care Policy, the commercial suggests, is one such backup.

Selection of the face of the campaign, the background score, selection of language and words, and the way story is told are clear indications that a lot of detailing went into the making of this campaign. Sanjay Tripathy, Senior EVP, Marketing, Product, Digital and E-commerce, HDFC Life says, "This campaign took over a month in just rewriting the scripts till everyone around the table – us and Leo Burnett – were happy with it. In the end, the final script that made it to television was co-written with Lisa Ray herself. She insisted that she sit with us because she wanted to give the script as much of her story and authenticity as possible. The photographs shown in the ad are also real and from her personal collection.”

With such a sensitive topic at hand, the client and the agency researched every aspect of it. The scripts were researched with consumers before going into production. Tripathy divulges, “Even before finalisation, we looked at Lisa's real life story, got a feel of what we could/should say and ensured every step was based on facts and truth, and not just conjecture.”

With the objective of creating a need for Cancer insurance in India, HDFC Life wanted a real Cancer survivor to tell the world his/her story of the battle with Cancer. Tripathy explains, “Lisa worked well for the campaign as she has gone through this journey and realises the importance of financial planning for the same. She also exemplifies the spirit of Sar Utha ke Jiyo. Since the story is real and her own, we did adapt the campaign to ensure we captured the spirit of her fight against Cancer.”

Lisa Ray, an extremely passionate advocate of Cancer awareness, was on board the minute she heard what the product was. She felt Cancer insurance and the importance of money in this fight was a conversation that had not been given enough importance, and is a proactive way of making one ready to fight Cancer better. The commercial has succeeded in telling Lisa’s story in a tender yet impactful manner. As per Tripathy, “It is always a difficult job to put someone's story in a 45 sec format. However, from the start, we were always clear on the message we wanted to deliver and worked towards crafting the campaign with Lisa's story, towards this objective. The creative style was to stay real and make the message resonate with the audience with both the narration and music playing a big role to accentuate the same.”

From the sophisticated model, the way she blends English and Hindi, background score of the ad…in fact the entire feel of the ad seems to be skewed towards an urbane TG. Of course by design, as expresses Tripathy, “The product is niche with the penetration of health insurance and disease specific plans being small. We do realize the TG for this product is Urban, Affluent.” He adds, “Once we start the conversation on the need for cancer insurance, we can always take the product down the strata, considering its low price point. For the current TG, the campaign fits the bill with Lisa being a recognizable face and her cancer story well documented.”

The strategy has hit the bull’s eye, as far as connecting with the urban and upmarket TG is concerned. However, has it succeeded in attaining the brand objective it had set out to achieve? Tripathy believes that it has not only succeeded in striking a chord but has also created an impact in consumers’ consideration of the brand and product. He says, “The early response to the campaign has been encouraging. Our objective going into the campaign was to get people to understand the financial impact of Cancer and hence, the need for Cancer insurance. While Cancer awareness is high, this is a conversation that so far had not taken place in our country. We hope to create this difference through the campaign and leave an impact through our offering.”