Take a pledge to protect your family says Birla Sunlife Insurance's new campaign

Have you taken a pledge to secure your family? Birla Sunlife Insurance which has been inspiring people to not leave their dreams to fate by securing the future of their families, through this simple insight, launched its new campaign for its Protection Solutions.

In order to bring this concept alive for the 360 surround campaign, Mindshare came up with the idea of driving the audience to "act' by "taking a pledge to protect their family'. The 360 campaign was led by Radio and will now see Society Activations, Cinema Activations, Advertising using the DTH platform, Content integration of real life stories etc. The pledge can be taken by going onto the micro site www.proudtopledge.com.

Adgully caught up with Ajit Gurnani, Principal Partner-Client Leadership, Mindshare and Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer - Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group to know more about the new campaign.

Speaking about the client's brief, he said, "The brief was to bring the campaign idea alive by provoking consumers and sensitizing them to the fact that what happens to their family in case of an unfortunate incident. This was to be done by activating touch points that are true to the strategy yet relevant."

"The ideas were generated by looking at a day in the life of a consumer, and looking at the consumer journey while being true to the brief and all this while being single minded and simple in approach," Gurnani added.

Telling about the major challenges faced in executing this idea, he said, "While the usual challenges of getting approvals existed, the bigger challenge was to ensure a balance between the campaign message and the branding of the activation. The branding should not be so overpowering that it overshadowed the genuine brand conversation of protection solutions from BSLI- so that one's dreams are not left to fate."

The route was to develop empathy by creating provocative activation platforms that are on strategy, relevant and unique. Activations which are relevant and contextual to get the point across were identified and are going to be used in the next week. These include Mock Fire Safety Drills at corporate offices and "Rope of Safety' activity in association with the traffic department where traffic personnel manned select crossings.

Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer - Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group said, "Today's Indians are very hard working and optimistic. They are confident that their hard work itself will make them meet all their dreams for themselves and their loved ones, one by one. The aam aadmi's confidence, at times makes him believe that his actions will make him the master of his destiny. Our campaign aims to provoke mass India to realise that there is a role that fate too can play. So they should not leave their dreams to chance".

On Radio, true stories of people who have survived and come out of a life threatening incident were aired and listeners across 8 cities were asked to share their near death experiences which made them realize how fragile the thread of life is. This was also supported by activations in partnership with Radio Mirchi across 64 key residential societies where a "My Family Day' was celebrated.

The 3 week radio activity also involved creation of a "Protection Song' composed by Abhishek Ray and sung by Abhishek and Kavita Krishnamurthy. The importance of the message and the cause prompted celebrities like Anushka Sharma, Ranveer Singh, Abhishek Bachchan, Shilpa Rao etc. to participate. The radio activity helped create a huge buzz among the listeners across cities.

The activations kicked off in December 2011, and will continue until January 2012. The 'Rope of Safety' activity, in association with the traffic department, took place at the Bandra, Santa Cruz and Ghatkopar traffic signals where the signals were manned by BSLI Promoters and people were not allowed to cross the road when the lights turned green. Messages related to safety were displayed and " proud to pledge bands' were distributed to people taking a pledge to protect their families.

The second activity-mock fire drills occurred at the corporate offices, in which employees were made to participate in the exercise to learn how to protect themselves incase of a fire. The Fire drill was carried out with a difference as the people who were expecting the regular fire drill were surprised when they came across a lucky survivor of a life threatening incident who narrated his story and the importance of securing and protecting dreams. This was followed by the regular fire drill and display of real life stories by means of other collaterals. People were also given a maroon "proud to pledge' band for taking a pledge to protect their families. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]