"SBI Life’s refreshed brand line reflects our vision of transformation"

The pandemic has inevitably reshaped the consumer attitude towards buying insurance. Rather than being a ‘security provider’, individuals now expect life insurance to be an ‘enabler’ that will help them fulfil their aspirations and secure their family’s financial future. Recognising the need to cater to changing consumer mind-set, SBI Life Insurance, one of the most trusted private life insurers in the country, has unveiled its reimagined brand identity, which is a unique expression of the brand’s core belief, which is ‘Independence in thinking’.

Deciphering the changing societal value system, consequent evolution of individual attitudes and accordingly align the iconic brand SBI Life, to address and serve the changing aspirations of new India and redefined their brand   proposition. The new tagline – ‘Apne Liye, Apno Ke Liye’ – showcases the insurers’ unique attempt at enabling individuals to explore their own ‘wants’ while securing the ‘needs’ of their loved ones.

Speaking with Adgully for their column Talking Insights, Ravindra Sharma, Chief - Brand, Corporate Communication & CSR, SBI Life, shares his insights on SBI Life’s reimagined brand identity campaign, the media strategy, the targeted markets and more.

Your new brand line talks about wants and security. What was the objective and purpose behind this fresh brand communication?

SBI Life’s refreshed brand line reflects our vision of transformation towards being an ‘enabler’ for our customers along with being a‘security’ provider. This thought aligns perfectly with the brand’s purpose of liberating individuals to pursue their dreams, by securing the needs & aspirations of their loved ones.Our new brand identity just not focuses on the tagline change but a more improved and dynamic approach towards fulfilling the insurance needs of our customers across the length & breadth of the country.

Through our extensive research, we understood that earlier the consumer mindset was “how will the society react, if I think about myself first and not the family”, which is now seamlessly moving towards a direction of “as long as I have protected my loved ones, I can aspire to fulfil my dreams and aspirations also”. This shift has brought with it abundant opportunities, thereby enabling fellow ‘Indians’ to follow their individualism, built on a foundation of independent thinking. 

The reason for the new brand philosophy and tagline is a representation of decoding that emotion for a strong brand connect and aligning with the evolving needs of today’s consumer. Our refreshed brand line and the overall brand communication is a result of this zeal to always keep up with the changing aspirations of our customers.

Hence, the reimagined brand identity can be attributed to our ambition of addressing the changing aspirations of a new evolving individualistically determined India and establish a belief that our customers can embrace life with open arms by striking a balance between their own wants and their family’s needs.

How did you arrive at your new insights? Tell us more about the creative thought – ‘Apne Liye, Apno Ke Liye’.

The creative thought was a result of our extensive research comprising of countless conversations with our customers, prospects, strategic partners, employees and other stakeholders which gave us many valuable insights on the changing consumer mindset and a new evolving individualistically determined India. Our objective was to widen the appeal to focus on an audience of millennials and Gen Z living in ‘India’ while ensuring that we don’t alienate our existing loyal customers.

Before arriving at the brand tagline, our initial research reports (commissioned and non-commissioned) showcased the millennial ‘mindset’ is claiming its individualism, and is doing this guilt-free while finding ways to claim their individualism in their personal as well as professional lives. For them identity transformed from the not only fulfilling their individual dreams but also simultaneously taking care of their family responsibilities.

The new tagline, ‘Apne Liye Apno Ke Liye’, reflects the brand core, which has ‘independence in thinking’ and aligns with the brand’s purpose of ’Liberate individuals to pursue their dreams, by securing the needs and aspirations of their loved ones by providing security, access, trust and reliability to the customers.

The rise of individualism coincides with a desire for a life without compromise, conventional career choices no longer satisfy millennials looking to find their individual paths. The insights and data showcased that relationship between the ‘individual’ and the ‘collective’ has become symbiotic now.

With a strong cultural insight of shift in mindset from the earlier thinking of“society will judge me unkindly if I don’t sacrifice my wants for my family’s well-being” to today’s forward looking thought of “I’m comfortable pursuing my own wants, as long as I’ve looked after the needs of my loved ones”. With this strong and relevant positioning opportunity the tagline of ‘Apne Liye, Apno Ke Liye’ was born.

Who is your core audience for the campaign? Insurance is a low involvement category so what is your expectation from this campaign?

Our target audience is not from a demographics perspective, but more from a psychographic perspective as we intend to target the new age audience and her/his purpose to live life for oneself while securing the needs of the loved ones. We strongly believe that today, age parameter is a support function and hence, brands need to target the human behaviour and the mindset.

Our expectation is to create awareness around the new brand proposition and continue building it over a period of time. We feel that this proposition clearly narrates the new age Indian values and adds more dynamism to the category offerings.

What kind of markets are you looking at for this campaign and what will your engagement strategy with your audience be? Have you drawn up any media strategy?

Our consumers are spread across the country. With SBI Life having a strong equity across Indian markets, our focus is very clear that is to connect with every audience and serve them.

With an aim to connect with them, all the mediums for us play a very important role. We have adopted an integrated communication approach that will help us connect with maximum consumers and also let our messaging reach them in a seamless manner. Since our communication message is around launching a concept and message that is emotional and aspirational, it becomes critical for the brand to use various medium effectively. With this, we are using the mediums like TV, Digital, PR, OOH, Cinemas etc. where TV and Digital will play a key role in driving the brand message to the new age audience for increased relevance and effectiveness. PR-ledcommunication will help in simplifying the concept and help readers understand the importance of ‘independent thinking’ and ‘liberation’.

Towards sustaining the brand message, OOH followed by Cinema will keep driving the brand message for the long term. Increasing our presence around all marketing mediums, will only help in reaching our TG, build credibility and improve consideration.

How do you plan to measure the effectiveness of the campaign? What is the duration of this campaign?

Campaign effectiveness is measured with the parameters of likeability, New Information, Appeal, Persuasion and Different. Our core parameters are likeability and in this category, it plays an important role in drive top of mind recall.

The campaign duration is around 6 weeks, with media touch-points of TV, Print, OOH, Digital, PR and Cinema.