This Case Study takes a look at how Ageas Federal Life Insurance recreated a younger version of Sachin Tendulkar for an AI video campaign which went on to garner 12 Mn video views across various digital platforms.
The Case Study does a deep dive on how Ageas Federal Life Insurance used Deepfake & AI video to recreate a younger Sachin Tendulkar and leveraged social media, IPL and the love for cricket to drive the importance of insurance. The campaign gained a total of 96+ Mn impressions across digital platforms.
Category Introduction
One of the positives to emerge from the pandemic has been an increased awareness of the need for life insurance.
However, the life insurance market is still severely under-penetrated in India and much more needs to be done in terms of educating people about the importance of life insurance in protecting oneself and one’s family from life’s uncertainties.
Building on this growing acceptance, players in the category are looking to further drive awareness and remind customers to invest in life insurance for a safe and secure tomorrow.
Brand Introduction
Ageas Federal Life Insurance is one of India’s prominent life insurance companies that strives towards creating value for its stakeholders. Its reason to exist, its purpose, is to provide means for people to live a life and lifestyle of their choice. It achieves that by helping people plan for the future with life insurance.
While the rest of the industry tends to use fear and negativity to drive life insurance sales, Ageas Federal has constantly positioned life insurance in a positive light.
Ageas Federal Life Insurance AI Video Campaign - Summary
The campaign portrays a fresh perspective on #FutureFearless, told through the lens of Brand Ambassador, Sachin Tendulkar. It inspires parents to financially secure their child’s future and allow them to pursue their fearless dreams.
Using Deep Fake AI Video Regeneration Technology to accurately recreate an 11-year-old Sachin, the campaign film portrayed a quietly confident, young Sachin who recorded a special message for his older self on being fearless despite the hurdles of the world. At the end of the film, referring to his own childhood experiences, he urged parents not to fear the future but to prepared for it.
Problem Statement/Objective
The campaign stemmed from the #FutureFearless survey conducted by Ageas Federal Life Insurance with research partner, YouGov India, which examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial preparedness of Indian parents in planning for their children’s education, career and other life goals.
Findings from the survey revealed that saving for their children’s future emerged as one of the top priorities for parents, amid pandemic-led forced cut down on savings and investments, after addressing medical exigencies. Moreover, with the increasing cost of education along with parents’ ambitions for their children, saving for academics has taken precedence over other life goals for their children like saving for marriage or setting up a business.
Life insurance emerged as one of the top preferences for parents when saving or investing for the long-term goals of their children.
Brief
The #FutureFearless campaign was conceptualized and created in partnership with VMLY&R India. The brand’s brief to the agency was to create awareness among parents with young kids about the importance of financial planning and investment in life insurance for their kids’ bright future.
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Challenges
The campaign used custom AI technology to re-create a young, 11-year-old Sachin Tendulkar. The process of creating an AI-generated video typically involves using existing video guides, however, no videos of young Sachin exist. The agency, along with technology company Metropolitana, Spain, used only the few available photographs to create a video, with advanced 3D modelling to aid natural and realistic movement.
Ageas Federal Life Insurance AI Video Campaign - Execution
The brand launched the campaign with a series of teaser posts on its social media pages. Each post was a nostalgic moment from Sachin Tendulkar’s childhood and youth, while he was still training and learning the ropes of cricket. The purpose of these teaser posts was to take the audience back to that era and form a link to ‘young Sachin’ portrayed in the campaign film.
The campaign was promoted on social media across all platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. The brand also used a vernacular social media platform – ShareChat in its media plan to target audiences in vernacular languages.
Apart from social media, the brand promoted the campaign on popular sports websites and portals, especially considering the increased interest in cricket during the ongoing IPL season.
With the TG being primarily male, the brand also promoted the campaign on popular news portals (mainlines, financial and regional) as well as OTT apps like Times of India, Economic Times, Dailyhunt, Moneycontrol, The Hindu, Zee News, Amar Ujala, Zee5, MX Player and others.
Further, VMLY&R created a custom process that blended AI, CG, and live shoot to achieve the desired result. The agency recorded adult Sachin and de-aged his voice to make sure it had realistic notes and nuances, things people recognize about him today.
Results
Quantitative:
The campaign began in the last week of March 2022 and garnered a total of 96+ Mn impressions and 12 Mn video views across various digital platforms.
On Sharechat, the campaign received 2.7+ Mn impressions and 1.5+ Mn video views. The campaign has also received 22+ Mn impressions from the various sports websites.
Karthik Raman, Chief Marketing Officer and Head – Products, Ageas Federal Life Insurance said, “Our Brand Ambassador, Sachin Tendulkar is the perfect embodiment of being #FutureFearless. Un-deterred by any hurdles that life threw at him, he persevered with determination to achieve his dreams and build his future. Our aim through this campaign, is to use Sachin’s example to encourage parents to wisely plan for their children’s future. We are going through uncertain times but with financial discipline and timely investment in life insurance, parents can help fulfil the fearless dreams of their children.”
“We are also excited about our brand film which uses DeepFake AI Video Regeneration Technology to portray a young Sachin at the age of 11 years. While we have watched the Master Blaster innumerable times as an adult, we did not have any pre-existing footage of him as a child. Hence, we completely relied on this technology to de-age him and create the video.”