Think insurance advertising and the first thought that could come to your mind is a complex product with terms and conditions that most can't understand or campaigns that speak of the need for insurance for a dreaded eventuality. But, how about a brand that uses humour as a tool to convey the same while educating consumers about the insurance category. Taking this route is ACKO which has not only disrupted the category but has taken on the role of educating consumers, albeit with a playful and humourous tone.
Ashish Mishra, Chief Marketing Officer of ACKO, says, "As an insurance brand, we are trying to educate Indians about the insurance category - which can get boring and technical. There are so many things that we want to educate our consumers about." Sharing examples, he says that when a consumer buys a new car from a dealer, they don't have to take the insurance from the dealer. In fact, if a consumer were to buy the insurance from elsewhere, they could see significant savings. Similarly, it is easier to renew the car insurance on an app which also provides various features to make the process seamless.
In 2023, when the ACKO team was brainstorming for a creative device for their car insurance product, their creative agency Leo Burnett came up with the idea to have a dialogue between two generations. This idea was narrowed down to have a father-daughter duo having a conversation around car insurance and this led to bringing actor Saif Ali Khan and his daughter Sara Ali Khan on board.
With Saif Ali Khan and Sara Ali Khan working together for the first time, Mishra says, that their camaraderie made the films funnier than intended. Mishra says, “This was a great way to bundle the core message that we wanted to deliver through our creative. The campaign aimed to debunk traditional consumer beliefs surrounding motor insurance. Through the series of ad films, Saif and Sara portray an engaging contrast between a millennial and a Gen X mindset when it comes to insurance decision-making. With their fresh and entertaining approach, the ads encourage viewers not just to embrace new-age methods of purchasing insurance but also benefit from the ease and convenience of picking insurance from ACKO.”
The films educate customers about the numerous benefits offered by ACKO such as substantial savings on new car insurance, hassle-free claim settlement via the ACKO app, the freedom to choose preferred garages for car repairs, cashless settlement for predictable repairs, real-time repair updates, and convenient car renewal options. He continues, “The campaign did well for us and surpassed all our expectations in terms of demand, growth, and likeability for the brand. The great part about this campaign was that it had legs. We ran the campaign almost for a year and we did not experience any creative fatigue within the audience.”
The success of this campaign led to ACKO recently launching the second edition of its car insurance campaign, featuring the father-daughter duo again. The new campaign continues educating consumers on all that can easily be done on ACKO’s app including value-added services, such as paying a challan, finding a PUC center, selling a car etc. He says, “My biggest expectation is to bring some changes in our consumers life by educating them through our advertising; that would make me happy.”
With humour now playing a crucial role in advertising globally, ACKO too has taken the route to putting a smile on a consumer’s face. Mishra says, “We pride ourselves on bringing a welcome and positive change within the industry. One of the changes is in the form of the way we communicate to our consumers with a good sense of humor which has evolved over the years.”
The Power Of Munnabhai and Circuit
While Saif Ali Khan and Sara Ali Khan are the protagonist for the auto insurance segment, ACKO brought on Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi in the iconic roles of Munna and Circuit – with ad being directed by Raju Hirani - for health insurance. Mishra explains, “We were launching health insurance with a revolutionary product. Munna and Circuit always questioned the status quo and our product has a 100% bill payment and no waiting period, this had never been done in the industry. Munna and Circuit were the perfect device to land that message. They made it simpler and humorous and thanks to Raju Hirani we got the humor right. We made a complicated boring health insurance product category communication into a very interesting and fun way.”
Content Is King
Earlier this year, the insurtech company launched a podcast series ACKtually Speaking, - an educative series that delves into key financial themes – with actor R Madhavan. The actor has been positioned to be the ‘Voice of Customer’ - to be the customer’s advocate and guide, simplifying the complex world of insurance and addressing challenges and questions that individuals face in their financial lives that often remain unanswered with Madhavan posing the questions directly to ACKO’s founder, Varun Dua and experts. Mishra says, “We wanted a sit-down podcast style conversation and chose Madhavan for his authenticity. He cuts across India, is very believable and is asking tough questions to the founder Varun Dua. We've consciously resisted the urge to use him as a star in our ads, simply because we wanted to keep it authentic.”
Commenting on the multiple associations with popular actors, he says, “We have been lucky so far in the use of celebrities in our in our advertising and communications. There has been a very strict strategic point of view on how to use the celebrities.” When it comes to content and influencer marketing, Mishra says, “On content and influencer, I would say, watch this space. There's a lot of work happening internally and we have spent a lot of time in trying to figure out what kind of content strategy and plan should we have as a brand. You will see a lot of it rolling out in the coming months.”
Betting On Big-Ticket Properties
Another part of ACKO’s marketing has been associations with big-ticket properties. With sports as a genre working for insurance, the insurtech company has sponsored IPL teams and has a long-term relationship with Disney Hotsar on English Premier League and the live shows and the highlights on EPL. Mishra says, “We have a very strong belief in having a deeper integration with the shows that we partner with. Properties with 50 to 60 episodes tend to work for us. We genuinely believe in having a long-term meaningful integration in all the properties that we integrate with.”
ACKO partnered the business reality television series, Shark Tank India, where a ACKO Changemakers Wall recognized entrepreneurs who are driving change with innovative solutions. ACKO has been associated with Shark Tank over three seasons, with Varun Dua appearing as a Shark in Season 3. On MasterChef, the brand integrated ACKO Health Ki Baat where the chefs highlighted how commonly used cooking ingredients can be healthy.
ACKO’s latest show integration is with the quiz-game format show, Kaun Banega Crorepati, where the lifelines were ‘brought to you’ by Acko Life Insurance.
Looking at media, ACKO currently operates in top 20-25 cities of Indi and this guides its’ media choices with Digital, OTT and Television being the key channels. Says Mishra, “We've learned a lot in the last two to three years. We've experimented a lot across various media properties and now we are fairly confident on what we believe works for us. We are able to judge a media property faster than anybody else because of the learning and able to take good quality calls on what should be, what will work for which line of business.”
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