Insurance ad spends till now top 2008 tally

It’s all about having the highest brand recall in the insurance space. So from catchy taglines to pouring in crores in marketing initiatives, insurers are doing it all to grab the consumer’s attention.

Small wonder why insurance ad spends, despite the economic downturn, have already topped last year’s figure of Rs 602 crore. Insurers have spent Rs 906 crore thus far, which is about 50% more than last year’s. Ad spend in 2007 was about Rs 406 crore.

Life insurance ad spends at Rs 600 crore have also topped the previous year’s numbers. The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India is estimated to have spent around Rs 200 crore towards advertising in 2008-09, up by about 15-20% over the previous year.

For bigger players like ICICI Prudential Life, ad spends have always been a percentage of its topline. Spends compared with the last two years have come down, with the company's sharp focus on reduction in expenses.

Sujit Ganguly, senior VP and head (marketing), ICICI Prudential Life, said, “Our Jeetey Raho ad was the first communication in the category which stated that insurance can help a person planning for multiple goals. This ad repositioned insurance as a tool for goal-based saving and not just protection.”

According to Sanjay Tripathy, executive VP and head (marketing), HDFC Standard Life Insurance, the company has not done any drastic cut in spends, “but we’ve surely done a fair amount of prioritisation. This has helped us sustain our level of spends in this highly cluttered industry.”

Pradeep Pandey, director — branding and communication, Aegon Religare Life Insurance, said, “The decision for corporate or product ads depends on the objective to be achieved at a specific point in time. We launched the KLIB (Kum Insurance Lene Ki Bimari) ad, which was not a typical corporate or product ad. It was a piece of communication…..this has been followed up by pension and Star Child campaign, which were product ads'.”

Bajaj Allianz Life’s ad spend from April to September has been approximately Rs16 crore. Akshay Mehrotra, head, marketing, Bajaj Allianz Life, said, “This fiscal, we introduced our brand theme song and a holistic communication with the ‘Jiyo Befikar’ campaign.”

Future Generali is planning to invest Rs 30 crore on branding and corporate communication, said Abraham Alapatt, head of branding and corporate communications.
Kotak Life is looking at marketing spends of close to Rs18 crore.

“We are planning some innovative communication to increase awareness of the product and brand,” Gaurang Shah, MD, Kotak Life, said.

Anisha Motwani, executive vice-president, marketing, Max New York Life, said the company has reduced its marketing spends in this fiscal as compared with the last year.

“We undertook a brand repositioning exercise, whereby we moved from "your partners in Life to “Karo Zyaada Ka Iraada”, which has been coined to represent an ambitious and assertive India.”