 everyone and welcome to another edition of Rich Brand Talk. I'm delighted to have with me today Abhishek Upta. He's the Chief Marketing Officer at Edelweiss Tokyo Life Insurance. As you all know, this is the most critical period for anybody in the BFSI sector, the Jan 5th March quarter, and especially for the insurance sector with March being a significant month for them. I'm really glad that Abhishek would take our time out from his busy schedule to speak to us. So Abhishek, welcome to Pitch Brand Talk. Thank you. Thank you, Samran. Thank you so much for having me on this platform. It's a pleasure to be here. Abhishek, I just want to start first with the Zindagi Unlimited campaign which has been part of Edelweiss Tokyo Life Insurance brand philosophy for many years now. How has this initiative helped build brand salience for the brand? So Zindagi Unlimited is not a campaign for us. It's our, what do we stand for? It's our proposition typically in marketing parlance. What we call it is the positioning for the brand. Essentially, it stems from that insight that all of us have ambitions in our lives. You, me, the person on the street, even India's richest person, we all have ambitions in our lives. We all have aspirations in our lives. And to meet these aspirations, we have some resources on means available to us. This means could be in terms of money, it could be in terms of time, it could be in terms of health, it could be anything. But there are means available to us to meet these aspirations. The good part about life or probably a sad part about our life is that there's always a gap. Aspirations are here and means are here. There's always this gap. Now, I am saying it is a good thing because this is what keeps us going. It is what probably drives us. It is what makes up, get up in the morning and run towards our aspirations and move towards our aspirations. We call these gaps as limits. These are the limits which are holding us back. And at Edloy Stokely life insurance, we say that why we cannot claim to fully remove the limit, I don't think nobody in the universe can claim to fully remove the limits. But what we want to tell our clients, our distributors is that through our products, through our services, through our offerings, we can help you in reducing these limitations. And once you reduce these limitations, you can move towards a Zindagi which is unlimited and therefore Zindagi Unlimited. That is the thought behind this positioning. For us, it actually is a very sweet spot. Number one, it itself has Zindagi in it and we are into life insurance. Life insurance is all about Zindagi. So, it fits over there. More important is, it enables us to create meaningful propositions to the targeted, it could either be customers, it could either be distributors, it could either be employees or anybody else through one singular platform because everybody has limitations in their lives. So, what we can do is, therefore, if you know, typically if I speak in typical marketing language, there's one thing that brings in consistency of communication in our life and which is that hook which is Zindagi Unlimited. So, that has been very good for us from a brand perspective, but more than brand, Zindagi Unlimited has become ingrained across our organization. So, he actually tell our customers, go live your life unlimited and whenever we are looking at a problem, we look at problems as limits and then we look at how can we reduce those limits, fully well aware that we are not looking at removing the limits, we are only reducing the limits. So, I think it's a sweet spot and to arrive at a sweet spot in a crowded life insurance industry which has 24 plus players was very difficult especially to a very late entrant. Private life insurance industry started in 2000 and we started business in 2012-13. So, you are getting a fairly late to the business from a private life insurance perspective. Still, then being able to find a sweet spot I think has done very well for us. A striking part of your communication is that you have a woman at the center of your communication. She's the protagonist and she's also the submission provider. What was the insight behind this? Because when we look at insurance, primarily I believe that most of the buyers are men. So, what was the insight behind this? So, let me give you a data point. Of all the life insurance advisors registered with all insurance companies put together, approximately 27 to 28% of them are women. So, that means women form and I am probably talking a data which is almost two years old. So, it is quite possible that percentage would have improved. So, women already increased, yes. So, women already form a substantial part of the seller's network already. So, that is from the supply side. Now, look at from the demand side. While yes, 60-70% of insurance is bought by men. But women play a huge role as an influencer over here. So, if you see women either in their roles as an influencer or a direct buyer or a seller of the insurance, they are present throughout this journey. So, that was one part. Second part, as I was telling you earlier, we are a late entrant in this industry and we realized that we needed something which number one, we are passionate about. Number two, which resonates with the industry. And third is probably, again, putting on a marketing hat is a green field available, is a stand that you can take. If I club it all three, using women as a protagonist actually was a fairly easy decision to make for us. In fact, our first campaign way back in 2013 showed female advisors, which till that time nobody had done. So, we were the first one to start using female as an advisor. And also, let me be honest, as any day once we started thinking that we will go women as a protagonist, it is a part of the evolution of the brand. In 2015, we had got, we got Sainan Ayval is our brand ambassador. And that got us thinking that India has so much wonderful stories about women who in spite of the boundaries, the conditions, the limits placed on them, they are moving ahead. People like you who are making a name for themselves in the field, which earlier was probably reserved for men, a lot of reasons. We thought that why don't we become not a champion, but probably an enabler for all this. So, after that, we took a conscious call in almost all our communication, either the protagonist or the person who's coming and saving that day will always be a woman, will always be a woman. There was in 2015, 16 something, I don't remember the exact year, 17, 18. Deepika Palikal, who was a squash player, she won a bronze in Asian games. Okay. You know, one of the prominent newspapers, I'm not going to name the newspaper over here. One of the most prominent newspapers in the country had a headline on the sports page. You know, what was the headline? Dinesh Karthik's wife wins bronze for that. That's so sad. So, that actually got us, that was actually, if you see in my mind, since I've been with this brand for almost 10 years now, was a trigger point in my mind. We have to do something. I'll send you that clip. So, we put out a small, short us a small video on that. I'll send you that clip. It's a fantastic clip. We only question this thinking from Deepika's angle. And over a period of time consistently, we have used females as our customers to show in our communication. A large part of our communication, which normally doesn't come out, but it's fairly Indian in nature because it's targeted to our sellers. Almost all of the communication, the seller is always a boom, seller is always a boom. Over a period of time, what it has helped us number one, obviously to create a niche for ourselves. Number two, you know, as brands, you have to take a stand. You cannot be a fan sitter or you cannot play safe every time you have to take a stand. And that's the time we have taken. I don't know how long we'll be able to stick to it, but hopefully we will. You know, you spoke about evolutions and we spoke about your marketing strategies. So, how has your media mix also evolved in the recent past? So, media mix, the deciding principle is fairly simple. We will be where the customers are. Very clearly. If customer wants to see us in a medium-life TV, we will be on TV. But my personal opinion now is, especially from TV, is becoming very, very fragmented with the plethora of options available in order to do justice, to reach out to a substantial number of customers. I don't think any one genre or any one dominant player is there for us to be partnering with. At the same time of time, consumers have moved on. Consumers have moved on to fairly digital. The attention spans have gone down. Consumers have moved to digital mediums. And therefore, progressively, we have also followed where consumers have moved. So, primarily these days, our focus is to create awareness, to create consideration using digital mediums. Now, gradually, I'm seeing the fragmentation happening in digital mediums also. So, how far will it go in future? Probably, I don't have an answer for that. But yes, that remains to be seen. You know, you mentioned the digital medium. And nowadays, the marketing buzzword is personalization and hyper personalization. But one example of that could also be looked at as, you know, your agents which play a key role in the insurance sector. So, how has the digital, you know, the onset of digital impacted this entire community? Oh, digital has been a huge enabler in this. Huge enabler. Because suppose I am an agent and I want to offer a product to Simran, I will obviously have to customize it to Simran. Taking Simran's age, current status in terms of finance, current status in terms of health and everything put together, then I will customize a solution and offer it to Simran. Now, in the earlier days, when digital was not so much prevalent, I did not have that ability to offer it to Simran number one, and continue changing it to a Simran might say, no, don't do this, do this to me and offer me something else. Now with digital tools, my advisors can reach out to Simran effectively, because I know the platforms that Simran goes to take Simran's consent and then approach her directly, understand, make her go through a journey, what we call it is a need analysis journey, that this is where I am, this is where I want to go, and then arrive at a decision or a product or a solution for Simran, everything happening digitally, everything happening digitally, and then Simran deciding to buy it and completing the journey also on digital at probably just sitting wherever you are. Now digital has enabled these kinds of interactions, otherwise insurance is a 75 year old industry. For all these years, the agents were used to selling face to face. But now with digital, we have solutions available where we can do the same thing by meeting customers virtually by using tools like WhatsApp, by using personalization tools, some which have developed internally to offer products to Simran. So I believe a huge enabler digital has been for us to in our journey towards personalization. How do you ensure a consistent communication and brand image across all various platforms now, which is a seamless and engaging, which provides a seamless and engaging consumer experience? So it's easier said than done. Theoretically, it is very easy to do this thing that consumer should see a unified and consistent brand across all the platforms that are there. Unfortunately, what happens is because of multiplicity of platforms, multiplicity of people handling it, multiplicity of tools which are available to service those platforms, the consistency might go for a toss. So what we do is we try to create what is called as a center, a command center at our office, where all the communication flows through that. While that works to a certain extent, are we fully 100% in that hand on heart? No. I still come across communication which should it's not the most ideal one and which but still has slipped and went to customers. So it's again, as I was talking earlier, Simran, it's an evolution, it's an evolution because time and again new tools keep on emerging and you have to ensure that your communication remains native to those tools as well as native to other tools, but it's simple, but it's not easy. Now, you also are in a sector which is significantly impacted by policy changes, right? I just want to know how has the last budget which was presented last month, how does this, how has it impacted your current marketing strategy? So last budget, not so much because anyway it was a vote on account, but the budget before that, which is the budget which was presented in 23 February, that had a huge impact on overall industry. In that budget, so insurance was a financial instrument which had a huge tax arbitrage. So all the proceeds that come from insurance of the savings plan of the ULABS or even term policies, they were actually, there was no tax on them, but an industry actually used that very well from time to time, although tax savings is not the right reason to buy insurance, insurance you should buy as per your need, whether your need is protection or you need is wealth creation, accordingly you should buy insurance, but tax was also being used one of the tools, tax savings to sell insurance. In the last budget, it was announced that for products which had what we typically call as money back plans, in those only up to 5 lakhs, premium worth 5 lakhs was the returns from those policies was tax free. If your premium goes beyond 5 lakhs, then the returns will be taxed at the tax rate of the particular individual. Now, this was actually a huge change for the industry, but what it did for us, number one is insurance and insurance is a game of retail, you have to reach out to multiple number of people. The moment, so what did it impact the budget? The budget impacted high ticket sizes for anybody who was buying an insurance by paying up more than 5 lakhs. So, that means high ticket sizes, they got impacted because they no longer enjoyed the tax arbitrage. So, industry was forced to probably look at newer avenues of more retailization. As an industry, we need to go to more retail person rather than focusing on H&I's or high ticket cases. So, that's industry has done very well. I think that now also we believe probably 5 lakhs could have been too harsh, should have been close to 10 lakhs rupees for us to do justice equally, but 5 lakhs is the regulation, so 5 lakhs is the regulation, but it has really helped us to do spread our wings further in terms of going to more retail customers. Having said that, even after spite of this budget, this limit of 5 lakhs, insurance remains the only instrument, financial instrument that has this tax benefit which is available. So, consumers should take that into account as well when they are planning for their needs and doing their financial plan. But this strikes all these efforts, insurance is still an under penetrated sector in India. So, how do you see what is the opportunity for growth if you can just give us some idea? So, India is a huge market and India is a market which is growing and India is currently on a growth path. We just had our quarter GDP, quarter growth numbers which have come in, which have come in and which have actually surpassed all expectations. So, this kind of growth we will continue see. So, the growth is going to be there. When the growth comes, there is always a need for protection that keeps on going up and that is where insurance comes in. Insurance also comes where a need for wealth creation through sustained disciplined focus needs to come in, that is where insurance will come in. So, from a potential wise, there is a huge market for life insurance. Our regulator IRDAI has taken upon a mission on itself which is called as insurance for all by 2047, which means IRDAI wants entire country to get insured. And I say insured, it is not just life insurance, I want life, general, everything. But IRDAI wants every Indian to be insured by 2047, which itself shows the intent. The intent is that insurance should reach to the last mile to the last person of this country. So, we have a regulatory intent, we have a regulatory push that is available. But I believe while penetration is fine and that is definitely we all need to push. One of the largest dangers that we all face in our lives as consumers is also under insurance. I might still have insurance for me and therefore I will not be part of the cohort, which is where insurance is not minute written, but do I have enough insurance? In fact, one of my favorite exercises when I meet a lot of people is in a room, I will ask how many of them are insured. Most of the hands go up because everybody has some sort of insurance. Then my next question is how many think I will have adequate insurance? Hardly one or two percent of hands go up at that point of time. Even while people working within our company who are working in life insurance industry, we ourselves probably might be under insurance from time to time. So, we as a country should also look at that part. Insurance for the sake of insurance doesn't do justice. Plus ultimately, let's take an example, a term insurance. At a very basic level, term insurance is income replacement, which means if the particular individual is no longer there, will the insurance of mind suffice to take care of the family who is left behind, maintaining the same standards of living what they are currently having. So, it's an income replacement. Now, the problem is as we move up in life, our income keeps on going up. But suppose I have bought insurance three years back, my income has gone up some percentage points in these three years, my insurance has not been upgraded. Okay, so typically it stops becoming income replacement. It is not a replacement, it takes care of some part of the income and we don't upgrade our insurance so frequently. So, that is probably what needs to be taken into account. So, yes, penetration is important, but under insurance is very important. And industry is really working hard under this IRDI project of insurance for all. And I think Regrod has done a very good job that they have given one state to every life insurer and said, in this state, you have to promote life insurance to the last mile. That is your job, you are the lead insurer. So, suddenly the workload gets divided, the regulator also doesn't have a workload. One insurance company, one state, in apart from your normal business, you also need to focus on this state to promote life insurance. So, all these steps, regulator is trying to bring a platform in place where customers can neutrally evaluate all products in one place. Regulator is also working on a combined product which is health plus life at an entry level, which then can use to spread the penetration of insurance. So, if you see platform, product, distribution, everything is being put in place. So, I see the penetration to go up substantially as the years go by. Okay. Now, you had mentioned that, you know, last quarter, the numbers exceeded your expectations. So, if you could give us an idea, how is the year so far been for idealized Tokyo Life Insurance and what are your expectations from this crucial Jan Feb March quarter? The numbers have been good. We are growing at a decent pace as compared to last year. If you remember, if you actually need to see last year because of the tax announcement which came in February, there was a huge artificial push and urgency created in the month of Feb March, because the big ticket cases were told that the tax benefit will no longer be available from first to available. So, buy it now, buy it now. So, there was a huge spike that had come in, which was over an hour of the normal spike that comes in Feb March. Now, this year, that spike is no longer available. But still, we have been able to better our numbers as compared to last year, which shows that we have been growing at a decent pace. Industry is fully geared. There is enough demand in this thing. I think we will end up the year with very decent numbers. And finally, the trends that you believe will shape the marketing for the insurance sector as a whole. So, one trend you already talked about Simran, which was personalization, because ultimately, insurance is a very personal product. You have to buy it as per your current situation and as per your aspiration. So, the industry will continue to move towards personalization. That is one trend that I will definitely and that is bound to happen. Second is, which has been continuing for some years and I see this to continue, which is the vernacularization. People would like to consume content in the language that is closest to them. No longer can we hide behind that plain English and plain Hindi. We have to talk in the languages of the customers. While it is easier to say like this, to create content on a consistent basis to cater to all the 29 states in the country is a humongous task. And then you add the regulatory layer to it. Because whatever you are telling customers needs to fully regulator the compliant. It becomes very difficult in vernacular languages. So, that is a challenge that industry is facing. But I think, so that trend will continue moving towards vernacularization. I see a trend of, we have this trend of so called influencers. We started with mega influencers, then we had influencers, then we have mini influencers, now we have micro influencers. Anybody who has a camera and can do something, whether it is song, dance or anything, but just do lip syncing, tries to call themselves an influencer. So, my take on that is it's a fad. Very soon, only genuine people who actually are creating content, which is really worth consuming will stay in the business. Otherwise, else gradually people will fizzle out. So, this fad of creating content just for the sake of creating content, they go away. So, that is the third thing that I see. It might take one or two years definitely, but we're going to go away. That is the third trend. The fourth trend that I see is that entire fervor of nationalism in the country. In spite of elections being this year and in the beginning of this year, I am talking about financial year. And then most of the financial year, we would have a next government in place. But this fervor of nationalism is going to continue. People and brands would from time to time take up the national plan and ride on this feeling of pride that is we are riding in all of us right now. It is also coupled with the direction that the country is taking right now because we all are extremely optimistic about the growth prospects of the country, the youth of the country in terms of a very young population that we have. So, because of that pro-India or this nationalism is going to be around at least for this small year as a part of communication and trend. That is fourth I am going to say is and from a media perspective that I see, you know something called as appointment viewing is going to go away completely gradually, not this year but gradually. So, all those TV channels which have a scheduled programs, you know, we anyway have most of the TV channels now have their own digital arms as well. So, the appointment viewing where the broadcast decides you will watch when will continue to going down and customers will want to watch when they want to watch. Only in case of sports will appointment viewing continue because that is the nature of the business. I continue to see cricket rising and rising and rising at the expense of other sports. Okay, so that is going to happen. We are going to see multiple formats more coming. We already have other than IPL Women's Junior League which is now gradually gaining ground. Today we have started those tennis cricket ball league or something. So, you will see various other formats coming on and therefore yes that the need of our we need and league of India which is probably the best in the world and IPL is already towards that. So, that will continue. India's love for films is going to go to a different level is going to go a different level. We will very soon see a birth of mega mega celebrities who are loved across the world not just where Indians across the world by world citizens across the world. We will see rise of these kind of stars coming in and so India's and please take into mind that I am not saying Bollywood I am saying film industry because the film industry is transition from being Bollywood centric to now coming to entire India. So, that trend is going to continue. We will although in COVID we were thinking that the rise of the mega celebrities is gone now. But no, I think that is the mega celebrities will becoming even mega. So, those things will continue. These are the few trends that I can think of personalization I talked about. The other thing that is going to stay and that is probably market years will continue doing is the uniformity or standard you mentioned it Simran about consistency how consistency can be maintained across various platforms which is a very difficult thing to do which is a very difficult thing to do. And the last thing I would like to do is for industries like us which are heavily dependent upon distributors. Companies will continue to focus more on distributor creating a brand of preference for distributors. So, companies like us companies like paints industry a lot of industries are heavily dependent on distributors. So, those industries will actually create a lot of engaging content platforms everything for distributors programs for distributors and overall the distributor marketing as a concept will keep on growing. Thank you so much Abhishek. It was lovely talking to you and very very insightful. Thank you so much again for taking time out from your busy schedule. Thank you Simran. Thank you Simran. All pleasure was all mine.