Know Thy Breaks
Posts tagged Life Insurance ads
Insurance to Insulate Your Love & Life
Apr 25th
Tag line: Celebrate Life
Client: SBI Life Insurance Co Ltd
Creative Agency: O&M
Exec Creative Director: Anup Chitnis
Creative Director: Nitin Pradhan
Director: Amit Sharma
Producer: Hemant Bhandari
Production House: Chrome Pictures Pvt Ltd
Duration: 60 secs
Year: 2009
The soul of SBI Life has remained the same over the years & it just has a different expression this time. The core is the same. This new commercial is a fresh and romantic take on a young couple’s dreams of their older age.
The SBI Life Insurance ad belongs to the “feel good” category of financial advertising. Simple and entertaining, it leaves one feeling warm towards the brand. The play between the husband and wife is quite enviable and I’m sure a number of couples would want their relationship to be like that. The confidence the man shows in his future reflects on to the brand. It is in keeping with the spirit of their old campaign, featuring a group of old men playing cricket, to look at the brighter side of life. The brand tonality has been kept intact. It is just that the agency has tried to infuse youthfulness into the brand to appeal to the young insurer, who is married, in his 30s ensuring that the commercial has an emotional connect too. All in all, an enjoyable watch.
The message is about celebrating life & not giving out a cautionary message about the future. The film is shot in black and white, in keeping with the earlier SBI commercials which retain a realistic documentary like feel to it. The ad has been beautifully shot and the casting and performances are spot on. The track is sweet and that makes the commercial. That is the only reason why anyone would give this spot a second look.
The communication retains its core essence of ‘celebrate life’, and in the process creates a unique brand value that’s in consonance with the consumer’s aspirations. In contrast to most players who focus their efforts on the archetypal metro audience with propositions that overlap each other and often fail to create brand differentiation, the SBI Life commercial not only breaks clutter but manages to reach to a far wider audience.
Where Money is Just a Means & Not the End in Itself
Apr 3rd
Tagline: Mere Desh Mein Paisa Sirf Paisa Nahi Hai.
Client: ING Vysya
Agency: McCann Erickson
Script & lyrics: Prasoon Joshi
Direction: Abhijit Chowdhari
Music: Monty Sharma
Singer: Javed Ali
Production House: Black Magic Films.
Year: 2008
Description: The film opens on a shot of a boy diving into water to get hold of a coin. This followed by similar situations picked from the different corners of the country- scenes from a traditional mehendi ceremony where an elderly aunt is warding off evil eye, an old Rajasthani snake-charmer playing his instrument embellished with coins, a wide-eyed toddler playing with some coins, a shagun envelope with a coin, a girl wearing coin-shaped earrings, a brother teasing his sister for the customary rakhi shagun, a regional film poster decorated with currency notes, a turbaned man balancing a coin at the end of a stick, a sheet full of coins and a scene of the mosque, and so on. The ad ends with the VO –“Hum samajhate hain aapko, samjhate hain paise ki aihmiyat aur usse judi aapki bhaawnaon ko. ING – Banking, Investments, Insurance.”
Comments & Insights: This ad like many others in the past plays on the how this bank knows the importance of your money and understands your emotional attachment to it. But how this idea has been translated as being an ‘Indian’ sentiment and its manifestation in various walks of ‘Indian’ life is quite commendable.
Unlike in many other cultures, money has a deeper connect and shares an emotional bond with us in India. For example, Rs 11 or Rs 101 is perceived as a blessing in our culture, though it may be of very little value, keeping the times in mind.
Garnished with some hummable music and lyrics by The Prasoon Joshi himself, it makes a mark alright. Also worth-noting is that a number of different regions and religions across the country have been represented in the various scenes giving it a pan-India appeal.
The only question that comes to mind is why a Dutch bank just about 18 years old would be the right one to claim that it understands India’s cultural mind-set of money-not-just-being-money? Mind you it is ING sans Vysya we are talking about.
What is with all (and I mean all) banks going the emotional advertising way? Any ad for a financial institution talks about emotions, sentiments, relationships, dreams, you-get-the-drift-stuff these days that you can barely tell apart one from another.
Yes, here is one more bank ad tugging at those heartstrings, and had the execution been any lesser I would have given it a hard time. But as it stands, nothing aisa-vaisa about this paisa.
Max New York Life Insurance- Life Plans
Apr 3rd
Tagline: Karo Zyaada ka Iraada
Client: Max New York Life
Agency: O&M
Creative Director: Prasoon Pandey
Production House: Corcoise Films
Year: 2009
Description: The ad opens with a hurried middle-aged couple looking for their son’s seat in a train. Frantic-Father locates the seat, rebukes the cute girl sat at the seat opposite to the boy’s, for hijacking their berth with her luggage, locks the boy’s luggage, garlands him with the key and cautions him to not get down while the train is moving. Meanwhile, the mother hen -mommy has managed to throw in precious nuggets of advice like ‘koi kuch khaane ko de to lena mat’, ‘har kisi se baat mat karna’ while glancing sideways at the harmless girl before she drops the final bomb – ‘Gande underwear alag rakhna’. And just when the boy is even attempting some damage-repair by the meek ‘My Papa loves me a lot’ utterance, here comes the clincher. Papa-dear thrusts forward a packet from the window and goes ‘Kele! Kha lena’ while mommy coos ‘Pet saaf rahega beta’.
Comments & Insights: A brilliantly thought situation, a brilliantly worded script and a brilliantly well-fitting cast and you’ve got yourself a winner! The situation is something that each one of us has witnessed at one time or the other. Some days as the girl and (unfortunately) some days as the boy. The dialogues are delightfully earthy and the entire cast does a hundred percent justice – whether it is the I-am-in-charge daddy (played by Vipin Sharma of Taare Zameen Par fame), the doing-what-she-can-to-put-off-the-cute-girl Mommy, the compartment boy and the supremely cute girl trying her best to feign ignorance of the drama unfolding in front of her.
However, that there is no obvious connection between the ad spot and the service being sold is just too obvious to go unnoticed this time. We may all remember this ‘gande-underwear’ ad, but how many of us will remember it as a Max New York Life Insurance ad? Having said that, the ad indeed is so impactful that in the end, Max New York Life may just benefit a tad-bit in terms of recall! Kudos to this genuinely humorous and well-executed ad after a long time!
