Bajaj Allianz Executes an Innovative Social Campaign, Tells What #WomenShould Do

Bajaj Allianz started an initiative called jiyobefikarwomen in 2011 with an intention to highlight and reward accomplishments by women from various fields. Most inspirational working women was the pioneer campaign that helped kick-start this initiative. This was followed by some very interesting and knowledge based Google hangouts on topics like breast cancer awareness, investment planning and many more. This year’s campaign was based on the results thrown up by search engines on negative messages associated with the phrases ‘women should’ and ‘women could’.

Objective:

Bajaj Allianz wanted to give a stimulus to the jiyobefikarwomen property making it abuzz with relevant content and conversations for the target audience, based on the insight received from an NGO: Change the auto suggestions, to change perceptions. Despite several achievements by women over the years, the search engines continued giving contrasting searches when it came to what ‘women should’ be doing.

Execution

Bajaj Allianz created a " target="_blank">video which explained the intent of the campaign. They set out to change the auto suggestions by search engines by creating the right kind of perceptions about women using SEO and keywords.

A website was designed encouraging people to search for positive terms with women should thus increasing the possibility of positive terms to appear in autosuggest.

The website also allowed people to contribute to SEO process through writing blogs or sharing them.

The company also encouraged people to search for positive terms and converser around topics like ambition, adventure, independence etc. when it came to describing what women should do with the hashtag #WomenShould – increasing positive SEO.

The website also had a snapshot of what the company does for women customers.

Positives

The objective of the campaign was to create a positive image for women through autosuggest and thus help people change their perception about women. A very interesting idea which flowed perfectly with the initiatives that Bajaj Allianz has for women. While the UN Women (NGO mentioned) brought out the problem, the manner in which Bajaj Allianz tried to work on a solution was very interesting. They turned an existing situation into an opportunity and did not let it just be a statistic or a revelation of a study.  Also their approach was simple, yet very innovative.

Traditionally life insurance was never aimed at women but with more and more women in the workforce and being bread earners of their families it is important for them to be insured. This campaign subtly brings out this inherent need and an opportunity for the insurance industry.

#womenshould is also the hashtag that was not new and already introduced by UN Women. So this was a clever campaign from a social media standpoint where you build on an existing hashtag – giving the campaign not only local visibility but visibility across borders. The #womenshould had already spread far and wide by UN Women across various social media platforms and Bajaj Allianz very cleverly rode on the wave.

Areas for improvement

The campaign was a clever ‘ride on the wave’. The website had bloggers and women who wrote articles on the page but hardly any names which were celebrated or known bloggers. Having established bloggers and feminists write about the issue at hand might have granted it more credibility and therefore more visibility on their networks. The website also asks you to follow Bajaj Allianz on FB, Google, Twitter and Youtube but there is hardly any content which leads you to the content that is related to this campaign. Maybe a more specific redirect would help .

Through the campaign it might have helped if the social media pages had the same key message through the period and not promotions of other campaigns running simultaneously.

Also a company blog regarding the issue and the company’s viewpoint with some original content could have well supported the campaign further.

Conclusion

A very clever use of the situation and market realities, Bajaj Allianz made the best of riding on the wave of #womenshould and ‘made hay while the sun shone’. Some original company generated content might have helped, a hashtag which directly links to the company’s offering - #womenshould #jiyobefikar could have given the campaign more visibility, would have associated the campaign with the brand more effectively. Having said that there is reason to wait for more innovative campaigns from the company moving forward.