With media fragmentation today, single-medium efforts deliver limited impact: Vishal Subharwal of HDFC Life

Vishal Subharwal shares how HDFC Life is driving young Indians to the life insurance sector through their marketing and increasing the number of insurance buyers in the nation.

According to a recent survey conducted on ‘How India Buys Insurance’, difficulty in understanding health insurance clauses and insufficient funds, among others, were some key reasons for Indians to shy away from buying health insurance. The survey also suggested that out of the total number of survey takers, 93% of people know about health insurance, but only 43% of them own one. 

In a country that actively doesn’t participate in buying insurance, marketing life insurance becomes a tedious and challenging task. In order to connect with the audience and build brand awareness, HDFC Life has chosen to position their products through positive narratives, said Vishal Subharwal, Chief Marketing Officer and Group Head - Strategy HDFC Life. This can also be seen in their iconic campaign, ‘Sar Uthake Jiyo.’

HDFC Life’s marketing communication actively operates on driving emotional conversations and identifying spaces that are highly relevant in their consumers’ lives. In this conversation, Subharwal shares more details about the brand’s marketing strategy, media plan, and challenges in communication. 

Edited Excerpts: 

What is the broader and overall marketing strategy in place for HDFC Life? Can you dive into details on which mediums the brand explores to reach the correct audience? Which medium gets the larger section of the marketing pie? 

Our efforts are largely driven towards firstly ensuring that we always remain on top rung on key brand-health parameters like awareness and consideration. Further, we run focus efforts like the current campaign towards driving the need for our specific offerings like term, retirement or child plans and so on. As far as mediums go, we are open to all; our mediums are dictated primarily by the specific target group of each campaign. For the current campaign, we are present across TV, Digital, Print, OOH and Social media.  

What are some communication themes that HDFC Life follows in their campaigns? How has it helped strike a chord with the audience?

Our core message has always been about Pride and ‘Sar utha ke jiyo!’ We endeavor to communicate our product offerings only through positive narratives. We try to identify conversation spaces that are high on relevance in our consumers’ lives and participate in the conversation through our campaign. Our campaigns have helped us grow our brand’s key health parameters, especially awareness and consideration.  

Please tell us what was the idea, objective, and strategy behind the latest campaign. How did you decide on roping in Rishabh Pant?

Our primary objective was to bring forth a compelling story that could inspire Indians to understand the relevance of term plans and act on them. During the pandemic, awareness of term plans was at an all-time high as people witnessed a very high measure of unpredictability. However, as time passed, once again that focus shifted and moved to other things. Penetration for term insurance remains low when compared to global standards. Rishabh Pant, therefore, we felt was a great fit in this effort. 

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Not only is he immensely popular and respected by cricket-loving Indians, but also he had a very important story to tell. His recent and unfortunate accident was a moment for all of us to learn from.

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A post shared by Rishabh Pant (@rishabpant)

How does HDFC Life leverage digital channels to reach the audience? How important is social media marketing for the brand?

As explained earlier, depending on the TG we are targeting, we leverage on the relevant digital channels be it OTT or YouTube, or other relevant digital options. Social media is a very important part of all our campaigns. However, Social being a people’s medium with huge engagement possibilities, we tend to experiment with our campaign extensions on Social media. 

For instance, in our latest campaign, we didn’t just share Rishabh’s story on our Social handles, instead, we used a user-centric approach to encourage engagement and sharing. Realizing there are numerous individuals like Rishabh who have encountered similar life-altering situations, we initiated a conversation wherein people from all walks of life could share their stories and experiences. These narratives helped us inspire a broader audience to recognize the significance of our term plans. Lastly, on social media we also leaned on relevant influencers to drive visibility for our campaigns and its core messaging. 

The life insurance sector has been targeting the young demographic on a large scale. Through what medium does HDFC Life target this audience and what are some challenges that the brand has to face while marketing to this audience? What are some communication factors that you keep in mind while marketing to this audience?

For young audiences, we primarily rely on digital-led campaign efforts. However, in our experience, given the significant media fragmentation that exists today, single-medium efforts deliver limited impact.  

Hence we try to ride 2-3 relevant media for our communication efforts. Further, I think challenges by and large remain the same, as insurers we need to drive relevance and understanding for our products across segments. Additionally, I think we do need to account for the limited attention span as younger audiences have plenty seeking their attention. We have realized you need to get them hooked within the initial few moments, especially on digital-led efforts. 

Cricket and sports is a major sector that the life insurance industry dabbles in. What is the significance of roping in sports personalities, and how does that affect brand awareness and promote brand loyalty? Can you give us an idea of how the sports sector is important for the brand?

As a brand, our approach has always been that we partner with a celebrity only if their story has something to offer in terms of the core message we aim to drive with the campaign. Be it Lisa Ray who we partnered with to launch our Cancer Care product or some of our more recent celebrity partnerships, it is important that there is an inherent connection to the messaging. We feel pure endorsements without any brand-level connections don’t help.

Rishabh Pant is another example; the partnership is driven by the fact that as a survivor and someone who is likely to make a comeback sooner rather than later, Rishabh’s story is a huge lesson for everyone towards timely financial planning and building resilience in life to help one bounce-back.  

What are some emerging trends or consumer behavior patterns that you have observed in the past few years and how is HDFC life adapting to stay ahead of these trends?

The pandemic created urgency amongst consumers to take their financial planning and security seriously. That has now settled down. It has, however, left them with a higher awareness of financial products and their core benefits. The other behavioural change is that the last few years have ushered in a huge set of consumers who are comfortable with doing their transactions online including the purchase and renewal of life insurance products.   

The life insurance sector is a highly competitive landscape. What marketing strategies does HDFC Life have in place that differentiates itself from the other players?

Yes, it is a competitive space with two dozen brands vying for customer mindshare and a couple more on the anvil. But we have been able to stand apart as a brand because customers see us as both innovative/modern and trustworthy. Further, when it comes to communication and marketing efforts our tagline and reason for existence ‘Sar utha ke jiyo!’ has been our biggest differentiator. We ensure all our communications resonate with the core value of our brand ensuring brand consistency and differentiation.