We don’t want to be limited to claim settlement: Sanjeev Mantri

ICICI Lombard recently rolled out its new brand campaign, highlighting its core brand proposition of ‘Nibhaye Vaade’. Developed after a detailed research with consumers and planning with its creative partner Ogilvy India, the campaign seeks to connect with the changing trend of a young and inspiring India.

The multi-media campaign will run across TV, radio, digital, outdoor and social media for a period of four weeks on a pan-India basis.

In sync with the company’s customer-centric approach, the new commercial focuses on placing customers first, enabling them to fulfill their promises made to their loved ones, even as the brand works towards fulfilling its commitment.

Amid hectic lifestyles and multiple responsibilities to fulfill our professional and personal commitments, we end up compromising on our health and well-being. This is where the brand steps in with its health and wellness solutions, enabling its customers to avail a range of wellness benefits offered in its health insurance offerings. Customers can avail of Yoga & Gym reimbursements, Nutrition consultation, Sports & Fitness therapy as part of ICICI Lombard’s health insurance offerings.

The film has an interesting story line of a protagonist going for an early morning run despite extreme weather conditions. During the run, he thinks of giving up several times even as he feels the impact of the excessively cold weather. However, he continues to run since he has promised his daughter that he will get fit.

Watch the TVC: https://youtu.be/aTVXec_zx0g

The TVC is complemented by radio spots and multiple outdoor and digital creatives. In order to ensure engagement with consumers, ICICI Lombard is taking several initiatives on Radio and Digital media using the hashtag #DoTheDifficult. It wants to encourage consumers to share their experiences of having overcome obstacles to fulfill their promises towards their loved ones through the hashtag.

Commenting on the campaign launch, Sanjeev Mantri, Executive Director, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, said, “At ICICI Lombard, we have always been committed to support our customers during their hour of need. Further, we have been transforming ourselves to play a more proactive role by helping our customers stay fit and healthy. This is in line with our belief that prevention is better than cure and our new brand campaign exemplifies this thought.”

In conversation with AdGully, Sanjeev Mantri shares more insights on the campaign, its execution, target audience, market response for the new brand campaign and more. Excerpts:

What was the insight behind this new campaign and what was the brief shared with the creative agency?
Over the last 15 years, ICICI Lombard has created a unique position for itself in the General Insurance sector. Guided by our philosophy of ‘Nibhaye Vaade’, we remain committed to support our customers in their hour of need. We have showcased our customer-centric approach at multiple occasions, the most recent being Chennai floods, wherein our employees from across the country went beyond their call of duty to handhold customers and honour their claims seamlessly and efficiently.

As we look ahead, we believe that our role need not be limited to claim settlement. We need to play a more proactive role, after all, prevention is always better than cure. Driven by this new thinking, we have been working towards innovative solutions such as ‘Wellness’ in our health insurance offering. We have introduced benefits such as yoga and gym reimbursements, nutrition consultation, etc., to enable our customers to stay healthy and fit. Even as we develop new solutions for our customers, it is important to communicate the same to them. Our new brand campaign that focuses on Wellness is precisely focused on this thought process. The agency took forward this thought of the brand wanting to communicate its proactive proposition and dovetail it with our core philosophy of ‘Nibhaye Vaade’. It weaves in a beautiful story of a father going out of the way and running in extreme weather, because he has promised his daughter that he will be fit again.

How did you go about executing the campaign?
We wanted to execute the campaign in a way that it does justice to the inspiring creative that our agency Ogilvy India had developed. At the same time, we wanted to ensure that we were able to reach out to our existing and potential customers across the country by utilising the traditional platforms, that is, TV, radio, outdoor as well as harness the potential of new age mediums such as online and social media.

More importantly, we did not want to limit the campaign to merely garnering visibility for us. We wanted to initiate conversations across the central thought, so that consumers would be inspired to go beyond the ordinary and do something special for their loved ones and most importantly, work towards staying fit. Therefore, we created a special hashtag, #DoTheDifficult, which consumers can use across social media platforms to share their inspiring stories of having done the difficult for their family or friends.

Did you not consider roping in a known face for the same?
We wanted to show the inspiring story of a common man as he goes beyond his normal scope and does something extraordinary for his family. This required that we have an unknown and in fact, slightly unknown protagonist to convey the core message.

Any particular section of the audience you are targeting with this campaign?
We are targeting a wide audience across the young and middle age groups, male and female, across the country. Health insurance as a means of protecting yourself from unforeseen medical exigencies applies to all of us today, as lifestyle changes impact our health from a young age. As such, the key proposition of Wellness and Health insurance solutions is relevant to all individuals.

How has the response on social media been for the #DoTheDifficult initiative?
We have had a very positive response to the campaign across all media, including social media. In fact, the hashtag #DoTheDifficult was trending at No. 1 position on Twitter on August 31, just two days after the launch of the campaign.

What is the marketing budget for the campaign?
We have spent around Rs 10 crore on this campaign across all media.

What is ICICI Lombard’s share of insurance market in India?
ICICI Lombard is the leading general insurer in the private space, with an overall market share of 8.4 per cent, amounting to gross written premium of Rs 84.07 billion in FY2016. We serviced over 15.8 million policies and settled more than 1.62 million claims in the same fiscal year. When it comes to customer service, we settled 99 per cent health insurance claims within 30 days, whereas the industry average was 57 per cent in FY2016. Further, we have been the leaders on the technology front and were the first General Insurance company to launch the online sales platform way back in 2005. We continue to invest in technology and have recently relaunched our website with the latest features and convenient user interface.