Humour is the BEST POLICY

Mr and Mrs Mehra are on their way to the airport. Their son Rohit is returning from the US "" an MBA gold medallist. As the father waits in the crowded airport lounge, his imagination takes flight. He plans that Rohit will marry "" images of Tina, Meena and Reena flash by.

Then? A big house, a happy, joint family, an even bigger joy"" a grandchild... Mr Mehra catches sight of his son and calls out. Rohit approaches his parents "" with a blonde by his side. He introduces her: "Mom, Dad. Ye Leanne. Aapki bahu (This is Leanne. Your daughter-in-law)." The girl folds her hands and smiles "Namaste", as the father soundlessly echoes, "Bahu?"

The narration continues: "Kya Mr Mehra zindagi ki chhoti-badi surprises ke liye taiyaar hain? (Is Mr Mehra ready for the big and small surprise of life?)" As the blonde touches his feet respectfully, Mr Mehra slowly smiles.

Then he hears a baby crying. Looking around, he sees his son kneeling over a pram, looking up a little shamefacedly at his dad. As the father smiles wryly at this further surprise, the narrator signs off: "Aviva. Kal par control."

This is the new television commercial for Aviva India, the first from its new advertising agency, Publicis India. The insurance company hasn't been seen on television screens since December 2004, when its last campaign, for its pension scheme, was telecast.

That ad was created by Grey Worldwide, which had been Aviva's agency for three years when fresh pitches were called for the account in October. The new, 40-second ad broke in the last week of July and will be telecast on prime slots on all major channels for the next eight weeks (shorter edits of 20- and 15-seconds will also be used).

Print and outdoor ads complete the campaign. While the hoardings carry Aviva's logo, the emphasis in the print ads is, not surprisingly, more on information dispensation.

Aviva India started business in India in June 2002 as a 26:74 joint venture between Aviva plc, the world's fifth-largest insurance company, and Dabur. The initial campaigns were corporate films that concentrated on brand building, but lately Aviva's communication gameplan has shifted to product promotion. Its last two campaigns focused on its Young Achiever child policy, the PensionPlus scheme and Life Bond 5, an investment and protection plan.

In keeping with that strategy, the new campaign, too, is product specific, promoting the insurance company's flagship whole life policy, LifeLong. The brief to the agency was, therefore, relatively simple.

The commercial "" the first for the product "" would have to reflect the USP of LifeLong: flexibility. LifeLong is a whole life, unitised protection and saving policy, under which the policyholder has the option of choosing either the sum assured or the premium he wishes to pay. Further, he can choose the proportion in which his investible funds will be divided between with-profits and units-linked funds.

"We wanted the campaign to emphasise that needs change because life is full of surprises. And your insurance product should change with your changing needs," explains Vivek Khanna, director, marketing, Aviva India.

With a clear understanding of what was required, Publicis was able to offer its client several creative options after work on the campaign started in February. "But we froze this quite early on," recalls Amitesh Rao, vice president, Publicis India, adding that the agency then spent a lot of time fine-tuning the idea.

The emphasis on humour, too, while not specifically pointed out in the brief, is in keeping with Aviva's earlier campaigns. "We were aiming for something that was humorous and relevant to the consumer, without being slapstick," says Rao.

That was achieved by roping in ad film director Ram Wadhwani, partner in Mumbai-based production house Equinox Films. Wadhwani, who won a Bronze Lion at the 2000 Cannes advertising festival, has previously directed ads for brands such as Vanilla Coke, Saint Gobain glass, Thums Up and Liril, among others.

He shot the Aviva campaign over two days at Mumbai international airport, with a 70-people strong crew of extras, who played various roles like cabin crew, pilots, passengers, waiting relatives and so on.

While coordinating the extras while filming in a working theatre was exceptionally difficult, the agency says theatre and film actor Rajat Kapoor (Dil Chahta Hai and Monsoon Wedding) played the father's role perfectly "" in just one take.

While the characters in the ad are part of the upper, affluent classes "" the parents drive up to the airport in a Toyota, they dress well, the son has been studying abroad "" the film was apparently given the "Hrishikesh Mukherjee treatment" "" an off-screen narrator, emphasis on facial expressions and a subtle humour that cuts across categories.

The filmi touch to Aviva's ads isn't new. The company's Bollywood connection started back in June, when it tied up a joint promotion of the Amitabh Bachchan film Viruddh. Aviva played on the movie's theme "" an older couple dealing with the death of their only son "" to emphasise the benefit most people seek from insurance cover: an element of security and control over the future.

The promos showed clips from the film, with Bachchan asking the audience to "Jiyo har pal, karo kal par control (live every moment, get control over tomorrow)". The last three words are Aviva's tagline, so the timing of the promos and the new ad will obviously help the insurance company increase its brand recall and visibility.

Timing is also going to be key for Aviva's next campaign, on which development work has already started. Around December or January, the company is likely to come out with a pension plan ad campaign, although both Khanna and Rao both declined to give details.

Research by Aviva has shown that more people opt for pension schemes during these two months (perhaps because of the tax benefits), which is why the company is scheduling the launch of the campaign for that time (remember, its last pension scheme ads, too, were in December 2004).

There's no such time constraint on life insurance policies, says Khanna. "Increasingly customers are looking at life insurance not just as a tax saving tool, but as a good long term investment tool that also provides the security of a life cover. Hence the demand for life insurance is there throughout the year." For Aviva, that's a good policy.