 "Insurance intermediaries join the brand game")
A small band of digital players is disrupting the Indian insurance market. Using data-led marketing strategies, Coverfox and Policybazaar are engaging customers and companies in targeted communication campaigns while carving out a space for the services they offer through innovative, humour-led brand building initiatives.
Online broker Coverfox and insurance aggregator Policybazaar have both launched campaigns to inform customers about insurance products, alert them about the fine-print and make them more aware about their rights as customers. Both have also used their campaigns to build up their own brands. Anticipating the emergence of newer and nimbler intermediaries in the near future, they are using humour to pitch their services and lodge themselves deeply into the customers' psyche.
Making it funny
Coverfox.com recently launched 10 microfilms on insurance renewal. The campaign created by BBH India was launched on YouTube and the idea was to give a quirky twist to the regular reminders sent out by insurance companies to customers. Making it funny helped get the message across more effectively and ensured that the customer would remember the name of Coverfox.
Jaimit Doshi, chief marketing officer, Coverfox.com said that consumers are exposed to myriad messages every day, insurance is no different. "The task was to ensure we reach out in an innovative way that results in action," he said. A similar motive spurred Policybazaar too, to create the ongoing campaign with television comedy star, Kapil Sharma. Naveen Kukreja, group chief marketing officer, Policybazaar.com says that they roped in Sharma last year "to increase reach and leverage his mass appeal with simple, tongue-in-cheek communication."
The online players are keen to embed their brands in the insurer-insuree relationship matrix and humour, they believe is the best way to do that. "We thought why not make it a bit fun. The crisp films are entertaining, drive the message home and YouTube, because that's where people go for fun and light browsing," said Doshi.
In the insurance sector where brand building has been the domain of large insurance players and confined to product-led advertising or corporate image building, the online players are changing the game. They are pushing up sectoral marketing spends, creating greater awareness about products and services and raising customer expectations. "With increase in our scale, our overall marketing budgets have correspondingly increased," said Kukreja. The intermediaries are also changing the way companies and customers engage with each other.
Consider the experience of one customer who forgot to renew his insurance policy. He logged on to Coverfox but left midway and then forgot about it. But the company didn't, sending him messages on social media and other pages he browsed online until he renewed his insurance.
All insurance companies send out generic email reminders, but using the web to track down customers and remind them until they get the job done is more effective according to Coverfox. The YouTube pre-roll films feature a Coverfox employee vowing to place reminders all over the internet, to help customers catch their deadline. The reminders then show up in popular videos all through the week, every time the customer visits YouTube.
Staying on target
Data analytics is playing a big role in the way these companies are managing their marketing and communication campaigns. Russell Barrett, managing partner and chief creative officer at BBH India said that we have all suffered a retargeting campaign at some point but these companies are being smart about the way they do it.
"Big Data helps companies know what you're doing and where you go. But how you use data can be the difference between irritation and engagement," he added. The ads were 6.5 seconds long which helped to circumvent the infamous YouTube 'skip' button and humour helped alleviate customer discomfort over the tracking methods.
For Policybazaar, the objective was to create awareness about insurance services; insurance still remains a push product and the company was looking to change that. Kukreja said that when they started, the goal was to educate consumers on the benefits of comparison since the Indian consumer is price conscious. The focus has now shifted to a larger objective of moving from just comparison to 'Compare and Buy'. He added that this year, the company has started advertising mass products like two-wheeler insurance, a product that suffers from low penetration and has low awareness primarily due to lower premium size.
With the insurance regulator looking to get more platforms activated for insurance, it has become crucial for these intermediaries to reach across segments and across age-groups. And in the months to come, their brand engagement strategies are only going to get more aggressive.
