 Thank you Mr. Batwal for joining us. You know we live in interesting times three four things are happening around us the as I mentioned at the start the technology the digital sort of revolution is really taking charge of all parts of our life. BFSI is a sector that has kind of been at the forefront of both taking advantage of that you know digital leap as well as being at the you know forefront of innovating with products with customer reach out. So let me start with a sort of larger you know umbrella question if I may. We've seen last few years especially because of COVID digital penetration as well as you know awareness of health has significantly gone up and that's provided a lot of tailwind for the sector. But as we come out of COVID what we've seen in many other sectors in media and advertising and many other sectors that the kind of peak we achieve during COVID both in terms of you know digital usage as well as in terms of you know awareness of health that is kind of plateaued off right. What are the trends you've seen now coming out of COVID especially in the last six months for you know the sector that you operate in. Nabil firstly thank you for inviting me to be part of this program and a very good afternoon to all of you. I think first let me start by you know just giving a disclaimer that I'm not a marketing expert folks so I'm someone who runs a business so my inputs will be more from a business perspective on how I see some of these trends in the marketing area and more importantly consume the way consumers are responding to you know whatever you were just sharing early on. Like all other categories our own category saw a very significant shift in the way which in which consumers looked at digital during COVID time. I think clearly there was no option right. The physical world was non-existent and there were two or three clear trends that emerged which actually impact our category. One is the general adoption of consumers to the digital way of being. While there was definitely a segment which was much more digital ready, digital native or you know whatever term we give to that segment but even the segment which used to have their own concerns about you know using the digital segment clearly started using it because they had no option. Let me give you an example in the area of health. We used to have something called a doctor on call facility in our products very early on in our when we launched our business. No one ever used it because consumers were not comfortable. We were well ahead of time in 2016 when we brought that facility. During COVID suddenly that became a huge hit. Why because you know digital was the way of of of interaction because and you couldn't have avoided that conversation interaction with the health care facility. The whole health area actually got a significant push you know of digital adoption during COVID and you know you've seen recently the whole kind of announcement of the Aishwan health mission by the government. I think that in many ways has got accentuated by what we saw in this category but I think more importantly it gave us an opportunity to reach out to consumers at scale and more importantly at a hyper personal level. I could talk to novel as novel rather than typically what happens in any communication you know which is very generic like all of us get that but you know just just maybe I should just give you a 30 second sense of what our business is about. We run our health insurance business which is very different from what you would traditionally experience as a health insurance business. Health insurance business is all about what I call sickness insurance sickness funding. I don't think so that's the way the category can run because when we are building a lifelong relationship with consumers you have to build something more meaningful something more positive than a fear-based engagement. So we you know call ourselves a health first insurer where we engage with consumers around the team of health and then insurance you know if something happens. Now something like that is where is high engagement high-scale engagement very personal and which is where we saw that shift happening and helping us a lot so yes you're right the adoption went up but if the base was X I think clearly the next base is significantly higher than where it was and even if there is a plateau I mean I'm technically not necessarily seeing a plateau but the pace of growth that we were seeing earlier may have may have come down a bit. So definitely consumers are more willing to talk to the category on the digital world because they feel that you know it is more meaningful to them it is more personal to them than what it used to be earlier and we have leveraged that significantly you know well because I you know we think that it's it's a huge opportunity for businesses. We are also seeing that you know some of the segments like senior citizens for example we would struggle to reach out to them you know in a meaningful manner. Suddenly that segment is completely open and why it is important because that's a very important segment for you know the health insurance business. So I think newer category of segments have got completely opened up now I think it's for the businesses to respond to this willingness of consumers to engage in interact with them on the digital platform in a way that makes it more relevant for them. I think that's an opportunity we've got we have to now respond back to the consumers. Very interesting two three points you know good growth means you know bullishness for all of us it also means increased targets for next year but what it also does is it brings in you know more aggression from all the players in the market perhaps more players in the market so overall while it lifts the tide for everyone it also means more complexity for you know business owners for CEOs who are running the company more complexity for marketers in terms of reaching out you know BFSI sector is very unique in many ways but two of the important sort of pillars that stand out for BFSI sector and perhaps you can throw more light on that is one trust because you know as you rightly said it is about health and you know we all many of us for example might want the same car but when it comes to you know health related products everybody is unique so the second aspect of health is personalization right trust and personalization these are perhaps if you talk to a you know business owner or a marketer today are the most difficult puzzles to crack when it comes to sort of talking to consumers so what is your approach on that how do you kind of go about tackling these two you know very critical challenges which are important for your sector yeah I think in financial services I think the first element of trust comes from the offeror itself I mean who is the offeror which is a brand that you're representing at least in our case we're very fortunate to represent a extremely large and trust trustworthy and you know trusting brand right I mean it has a history of you know more than a hundred years therefore that's something that you know comes given to us but having said that it's it's you don't you I mean you have to earn the element of trust from consumers right and a lot of that comes from experience that and in today's digital world you know the word of mouth has a very large implication in how you know the trust in the brands you know actually moves from one to the other consumers I think that's very very clearly given in our case because of our model of a very personalized health first kind of conversation with consumers are our products for example say that you know if you live a healthy life we will reward you for good health you know the digital world gives us that opportunity all of you are smartphone users we know what's happening in your physical world in terms of your physical health and based on that and a few other you know matrix elements that we have we reward you now I'm interacting with each you know consumer therefore as a brand at a very personal level my conversation with is at a very personal level hey you know now well we saw you yesterday that you know you for example you walked x steps or you know for the last one week you were walking except suddenly realized in the next one week it has gone down is there a reason can we help you you know so I'm saying that and that conversation to novel will be very different from a email that novel gets you know walking is good you must walk I mean that would not you know is not something that because you must not because there's so much of spam junk that is you know forced upon us that unless it's hyper personalized and relevant it doesn't really appeal to the you know the brand but because of our model itself similarly we get so much health data that we are stratified and we reach out to consumers through you know all mediums including digital of course is a large-scale medium that we can talk to the consumers about their personal health n is equal to one I think that makes a difference and I think the digital medium makes it really really practical more importantly economically viable I can't deal with scale engagement in the physical world there's no way we can make that happen I think that's fair and I think if you have the right content in that communication and the right messaging of course there are aspects of behavior science etc which are coming into play so that you know the right nudges etc come into play but I think content you know becomes very critical when we reach out in the context of personal communication because content also has to be personalized it can't just be generic absolutely I think important points to make here very importantly you know how digital allows you to reach the mass scale and if I can add to that at a you know reasonable cost if you were to do it in you know the old sort of legacy world the cost would be humongous tell us coming to you know the content and the marketing part of your business I know you don't run marketing but you know when you sit down with your marketing team with a brief and every CEO today is looking at you know one investing more and experiment experimenting more and more sort of in the digital world what are the few you know KPI metrics that you tell your marketing team for to look for when it comes to use of digital to you know either reach out to customers or say run loyalty programs or run retention programs see I mean at the end of the day what are the business objectives let's say in our case what will we want to do we'll want to first reach out to a much larger base of the targeted prospect base right am I is my targeted customer base aware of what I'm offering what I stand for as a brand I think it starts with there I mean the funnel it has to be opened at that level and and there after all the other KPIs of course come in in terms of you know will the will that target set me in terms of the way you are communicating with them the content they're using are they finding that relevant to be willing to respond to that you know conversation desire of us with the targeted population right and I think the first thing is that each of these intervention you know campaign or whatever you want to call it it has to be meant for a very targeted base you know when we used to do or when we do let's say a TV campaign typically it's a much more wider mass program right I mean you you may say okay I'm I'm targeted this segment on this TV program or in on this news channel etc but you we all know that it is it's not really as segmented as you want to make it so I think in in terms of digital marketing intervention that that whole aspect of how are you making it relevant for that focus segment that you know we have given you to reach out for that's another very very important for example we recently launched a product for the millennial and I'll you know talk we'll talk about it a little bit more hopefully and you know it there's a very different way of talking to that segment then let's say if I you know when we launched our senior citizen product or you know a senior just product as they sometimes some sometimes they are called so I think that's another thing and of course many of them I normally my marketing colleagues don't like to the funnel to go back final finally to the mula the the in the in the box the cash in the box but that's something that we keep having some interesting argument that finally I want money into the organization you know you may have a wonderful you know campaign you have a month wonderful you know intervention but is the consumer finally saying yes I'm willing to sign the check you know and and and I really because but having said that there's an also a brand element about the whole you know program that is it really helping us position and create the brand that we are trying to do for example in our case we didn't want to be seen as the traditional boring reactive I don't want to really engage with this kind of a brand which the traditional insurance is known for to be hopefully seen as slightly more interesting you know seems like something worth of in a worth talking to an understanding what they're really offering and in many ways we have I must say that team has done a reasonably good job to get us a little a little bit more about that man because it's very interesting what you put across because you know health especially health insurance when it comes to that most of us wake up when we are in our 40s right when you run your 20s or 30s you know you don't bother you you go to your gym or you go running and try and take care of that even otherwise you know your body sort of supports the journey when you target million years or when you target the younger population it is doubly difficult to talk to them because that's not like a priority area right so how do you sort of crack that challenge tell us the campaign you've done tell us a little more about that yeah so it has to first start with the offering itself right because I may I may do a wonderful campaign but ultimately if the offering that is being positioned before the consumer through that campaign if it's not fitting the expectation requirement need of that consumer segment it will not so you know we've launched a product called active fit you know it's meant typically for the millennial segment you know what what was on the inside said we were getting when we reached out to the segment they said hey why should I buy insurance you know health insurance I mean I'm fairly hail and hearty I don't see myself in the hospital your you know traditionally health insurance offers hospitalization benefit I don't want to build a relationship with you we said okay what if we offer you you know a reward for staying healthy seems interesting talk more I also like like instant gratification what's in it for me year and now that's what you know I hear the millennial population say all the time I mean give me something year and now I don't want to wait for the future I mean I don't even want to wait for the end of the year or end of the month tell me what can I get now okay what if I use digital face scan technology to come understand what your health condition is instantly you know we give you a 10% discount if you're healthy okay seems interesting what more so I think there are many such benefits I don't know get into product to bore you guys but interest so now the product seems to be the offering seems to be making sense to that consumer segment how do I reach out to them how do I communicate to them which medium do I use I'm not sure TV is the best segment for that population a digital is because that's where they are I mean ultimately what is marketing all about to my mind I'm what do I expect them be where the consumer is don't call the consumer to you know where you are because that's not what will give you scale so if the consumer is at scale in the digital economy in the digital platform get there so in this campaign we said okay they must hear the messaging from people whom they can relate to so you know the protagonist in this you know the person who's playing is you know we have Ali Fazal who's taking this you know communication to that that segment on the digital world it's you know typically an insta or a you know campaign of course on other mediums as well like Facebook and YouTube etc. you know we have used influencers in a big way in this communication where people like Radhika Bose and Varun Verma who are health influencers whom we are I'm I was told that you know I was not the target segment by the way for that these individuals but I was told that the Millenians really look at them as real influencers and we use them we use some you know interesting techniques call I'm you know the photo bombing and all of stuff which really the is something used and now they are put on you know we asked our many of our consumers to create their own reels etc. so I think it was in the way the consumers kind of consume content and you know some very interesting feedback we have got so far of how we took that this both the offering how we designed the offering and how also how we took it to them through whom and etc. so something very different from what you know we did earlier for our different segments in the past. I think use of influencers really caught on in the last three years in fact last week we we did another sort of report about the influencer marketing economy you know how it's growing and some of the numbers said that you know excluding use of media almost 1500 crores is already being spent by brands and corporates on you know hiring influencers and influencers now come in all shapes and forms you know 20 years back there was only a brand ambassador which would typically be you know Bollywood Listers now you start from you know a great Bollywood Listers going down to what what is come to be known as micro and nano influencers you know people who have reach in thousands but you know very deep engagement with your community so for our health sort of focused campaign that's very interesting to look at tell me it's you know very early days when it comes to you know things like influencer marketing so a lot of companies are still experimenting trying to figure out which is the right fit you know what is the right platform to go to what is the kind of right messaging while you know you start from the top like you explained you identified the need gap you went to the millennial identified that digital is the right platform to be when it comes to the bottom of the funnel really which is about you know getting these influencers using the messaging and then doing what we call conversions or attribution how are the results you mean what were the learning from those results let me ask you what what are the things that you would do differently next time yeah so I teach in this campaign it's you know we are still in the process so you I mean probably I'm not sure I can share concrete outcomes yet I think we're still in the process because we just launched a few weeks back but from whatever we have done earlier I think see you started by saying that first is that even identifying the right set of influencers that's a journey right because you start with because you said nano influencer and if you are doing hyper personalized engagement effort then you know the choice of that nano influencer becomes very very important and of course there is there is a you know effort involved in that there's a process and there is a whole discipline of how do you convert that interest and you know that the consumer is expressing the desire that the consumer expressing to have conversation to finally onboarding with this that sometimes there's a slip in that whole process itself but I think it's it's the journey of both identifying we are going through our own learnings in terms of the content you know in terms of what is it the right content because we are not dealing with a very you know I would say glamorous category we are dealing with a category which is still not something that consumers are typically waiting it's not that you get in the morning and say hey I am going to buy health insurance today no you don't do that unfortunately though you must by the way follow all of those who don't have you must explore that it's important but you don't do that so the it's all it's also therefore what will influence so we are using some we are having some conversations with people who understand behavior science and in the way our content is created how do you build in the right nudges in that communication so sometimes it's not about just using the you know the the right influencer but what is that right message that create converts that intent into action and especially in the area of health novel and not just insurance by the way all of all of us are used to having a first January resolution for I'm going to be healthy this year and what happens on 7th or 8th of January we all know so you know it still requires a lot of discipline right so I think those are many other areas that we are constantly going back revisiting so we have on board for example someone who's a you know who's a Harvard professor expert in behavior science he's helping us kind of look at the messaging the communication etc so I think these are areas that we are going through our own learning process because we are dealing with a we are trying to do something very different especially in the category that we represent very important very interesting you mentioned you know experts in behavioral science were helping you know it's it's it's like how medicine is moving people are while you rely on modern medicine you also kind of are going back to the roads in terms of you know what in India used to be known as natural you know natural apathy relying on more natural products that's why this entire way of organic food products is kind of you know sweeping the world right now because people want to consume more and more food which is kind of unadulterated lesser on toxic value so you know health insurance is really kind of dovetails into that I see our time is up so I'll I'll ask you one last question before we throw the house open I I hear you in the sense that you know more and more of the money that you spend spending for customer reach out is happening on the digital platforms legacy media still has value right you spoke about television briefly naturally it does not allow you very sort of targeted communication at each of the cohorts and some of the cohorts are not even present on television print also might not allow you so how do you look at your overall media mix now it is a given that majority of the company's brands are now doing increasing spends on digital right like I mentioned at the start the group I'm report this month said this week rather said 48% of money that companies are spending is now going on digital what is your proportion of spends you're doing on digital if you can tell us that and what is the value you still see for legacy media TV and print yeah interesting that you asked that question now because in the morning itself I was having this conversation with my marketing head and you know in the context of a you know a more mass brand campaign that we are kind of contemplating and I was asking this question that you know should we go full you know digital in this and again I'm not a marketing expert the response I got from my marketing experts including some of the other partners was that you know for that kind of a program effort we must use the mass media TV also and I was told you guys know it better is that you know post COVID I mean the shift that has happened significantly towards the you know the digital platform the OTT and all of them there is you know kind of a bit of a reverse shift happening back to the mass media on TV etc so we must use that I was still asking them you know please help me understand why because you know that's not as efficient at least as I you know started feeling but I'm told that no that is still required so from whatever we are seeing now I mean the sense I'm getting in that if you are you know so all our regular marketing campaigns are more or less digital the regular stuff that we keep doing which are very very targeted which are very specific segment focus but where we are trying to now take the brand to a larger you know mass of and I would say more a larger congregate of you know several segments with some common messaging there I am getting a sense that we'll have to use the TV as a medium as well apart from a few other traditional medium that's the sense I'm getting a very interesting you mentioned that I'll just add a couple of points to that you know when I say the average spend in India is 48% on digital that also means that there are companies who are already doing more than 50% perhaps 60% on digital and I would imagine a category like yours especially in the BFI size space certainly is in the higher end and not on the lower end so you are certainly 50% plus and interestingly yesterday I read an article on you know HBR Howard Business Review which speaks about how many large corporations are kind of how having experimented significantly with digital are starting to not kind of wean away from digital but also bring money back into you know legacy media especially television digital has been experimented enough in the last three four years to understand you know the strengths understand the weaknesses but one thing I think remains true that you know a lot of companies continue to use television in sort of helicopter level you know push when you want to build your brand do a large campaign but as you rightly said when you're doing individual tactical campaigns digital holds this way thank you so much my uncle