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Tag: Harjot Narang

  • Insurance a push product in India, says IndiaFirst Life’s Rushabh Gandhi

    Insurance a push product in India, says IndiaFirst Life’s Rushabh Gandhi

    MUMBAI: Life insurance ads with depressing thoughts about the future and forcing you to invest to avoid gloomy situations like an accident, health failure, etc aren’t the most alluring to consumers. Indeed, just a fraction of the country ends up taking the plan and quite a few of them stop paying the premium in the first three years itself.

    But this outlook is exactly what the country’s youngest life insurance player wants to change in its latest advertisement. IndiaFirst Life Insurance launched a one-of-its-kind advertising campaign last week titled – Because Life is Full of Certainties. Launched in 2010 by the then President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, IndiaFirst Life Insurance is present in over 1000 cities across India. It is a joint venture between Bank of Baroda with 44 per cent stake, Andhra Bank with 30 per cent stake and UK’s leading risk, wealth and investment brand Legal & General group with 26 per cent stake in it.

    Created and conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather, the campaign seeks to appeal to customers’ own reasoning by advocating prudence in planning for events or life goals that have a greater likelihood of happening such as getting married, having children, fulfilling responsibilities towards them and retiring. This is a step away from the generally promoted outlook to insurance that hinges on a person’s fear of the unknown. IndiaFirst Life Insurance director of sales and marketing Rushabh Gandhi mentions that the company wanted to differentiate itself from the existing norms of advertising and didn’t want too much of emotional jargon or overdose.

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    Although Gandhi did not disclose the allocated budget for the said campaign, he revealed that this is the biggest brand campaign IndiaFirst has undertaken in the last three to four years. The campaign will run till the end of this financial year (31 March 2018) and if things go as planned, it will be pushed to the next financial year as well.

    The company will shell out 55 per cent of the total advertising budget on the out of home medium followed by regional print (15 per cent), radio (15 per cent), social and digital (15 per cent). With most of the business coming from Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank, the firm will be setting up hoardings around the banks’ regional and zonal offices.

    The insurance player wants to steer away from television for the campaign and will not be investing at all on the medium. Gandhi says, “We thought: why to spend big bucks on TV when you can get the same result in terms of eyeballs with lower spends.” The company is also not looking at investing in in-cinema advertising where insurance and financial products form a bulk of the promotions.

    The insurance industry of India consists of 57 insurance companies of which 24 are in the life insurance business and 33 are non-life insurers. The number of lives covered under health insurance policies during 2015-16 was 36 crore which is approximately 30 per cent of India’s total population. While Gandhi does admit that insurance in India is not where it should have been, he is optimistic about its growth in the years to come. It requires a mind change, positive publicity and awareness for it to bloom. He says that insurance is currently a push product and not a pull one in India. “Insurance in India is growing at a fast pace although it had its blips sometime back. There is good headroom for players but we need to address the issue jointly as an industry,” he adds. The company reported a net profit of Rs 35 crore in 2016-17 and is aiming for a net profit of over Rs 50 crore in the current financial year.

    The future looks promising for the life insurance industry with several changes in the regulatory framework which will lead to further changes in the way the industry conducts its business and engages with its customers. With a growing middle class, young insurable population and increasing awareness of the need for protection and retirement planning, the industry is set to see some good times ahead and as Gandhi believes, “Life is not a series of accidents to happen as most of the things in life are certain, so might as well get a cover for them.”

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    Religare aims to change the youth mindset to health insurance

    Aditya Birla launches health insurance campaign

  • Dentsu launches Nokia’s Diwali campaign #Unitefor #Love

    Dentsu launches Nokia’s Diwali campaign #Unitefor #Love

    MUMBAI: Nokia mobile is rolling out its first big cross-platform campaign head of the festive season. It stays true to its global brand philosophy of #UniteFor, and rises to the occasion, telling a very touching story. To everyone consumed by technology, it puts human relationships above everything else on occasions when it matters.

    Nokia mobile proposes that for a day, people spend quality time with their loved ones. It doesn’t just say that, it walks the talk on this one. With a gift box in which one can place their own phone and give it to someone close or, just set it aside for a day as a gesture of committing their time—and themselves—to them. It is an integrated campaign, which goes across TV, retail, activation, social and digital.

    HMD Global (India) head of marketing Jyotsna Makkar says, “We thought it was important that a brand that showed all of us the way to connect, could also remind us that technology has the power to both unite as well as make people feel disconnected – this is a universal insight in our cultural context today.”

    Dentsu Brand Agencies (India) group executive & strategy officer Narayan Devanathan says, “People don’t like brands to ‘enable’ them anymore. They like brands to demonstrate that they understand them. What this campaign idea does best is to bridge millennials’ purposive lives with Nokia mobile’s campaign promise of uniting with their loved ones, using Diwali as the shining, happy India context.”

    Dentsu One NCD Titus Upputuru says: “We had fun creating the film and the whole gamut of ideas that explode the idea of gifting oneself. We hope ‘Main iske siwai tujhe main kya doon’ prompts people to think and unite for love.”

    Dentsu One president Harjot Narang said, “This was about breathing life into a campaign idea that the world probably sorely needs right now.”

  • Dentsu Aegis Network announces rebranding of Dentsu Branded Agencies

    Dentsu Aegis Network announces rebranding of Dentsu Branded Agencies

    MUMBAI: Transformation is in the air at Dentsu Aegis Network’s Dentsu Branded Agencies.

    One of the key advantages that Dentsu Aegis Network has as a network is, to create collaborations that keep clients’ business at heart. In a key move to help clients better leverage the capabilities of a global network, Dentsu Aegis Network has realigned agencies across several countries under three groupings.

    In India, this is now being manifested in three of its creative agencies being rebranded to better reflect this alignment.

    As a consequence, Dentsu Communications will now be known as Dentsu India, Dentsu Marcom will now be known as Dentsu One and Dentsu Creative Impact will now be known as Dentsu Impact. Meanwhile, Taproot Dentsu and Dentsu Webchutney remain unchanged.

    Said Dentsu Aegis Network India & south Asia chairman & CEO Ashish Bhasin: “This new nomenclature is a first step towards expanding and reinforcing the global and regional services we provide our clients in India. It will help us serve our global clients better as well as acquire more new business.”

    Commenting further on the change, Ashish Bhasin added, “We are consolidating our capabilities under a global agency network, with a uniform identity across markets, in order to strengthen the coordination across our network and expand the high quality service we consistently provide. The most important ingredient in creating innovation in an ever-changing environment is collaboration. This realignment will fuel, just that in newer, more efficient ways. This will help us further accelerate the tremendous success that Dentsu Branded Agencies have experienced in India over the last year, including the spectacular performance at Goafest awards and in the area of new business.”

    There is no change in the leadership or staff of each of the individual units, Dentsu announced. Simi Sabhaney will continue as CEO and Vipul Thakkar as NCD of Dentsu India, Harjot Narang as President and Titus Upputuru as NCD of Dentsu One, and Amit Wadhwa as president and Soumitra Karnik as NCD of Dentsu Impact. Meanwhile, Narayan Devanathan continues as the group executive & strategy officer of Dentsu Branded Agencies, India.

  • Dentsu Aegis Network announces rebranding of Dentsu Branded Agencies

    Dentsu Aegis Network announces rebranding of Dentsu Branded Agencies

    MUMBAI: Transformation is in the air at Dentsu Aegis Network’s Dentsu Branded Agencies.

    One of the key advantages that Dentsu Aegis Network has as a network is, to create collaborations that keep clients’ business at heart. In a key move to help clients better leverage the capabilities of a global network, Dentsu Aegis Network has realigned agencies across several countries under three groupings.

    In India, this is now being manifested in three of its creative agencies being rebranded to better reflect this alignment.

    As a consequence, Dentsu Communications will now be known as Dentsu India, Dentsu Marcom will now be known as Dentsu One and Dentsu Creative Impact will now be known as Dentsu Impact. Meanwhile, Taproot Dentsu and Dentsu Webchutney remain unchanged.

    Said Dentsu Aegis Network India & south Asia chairman & CEO Ashish Bhasin: “This new nomenclature is a first step towards expanding and reinforcing the global and regional services we provide our clients in India. It will help us serve our global clients better as well as acquire more new business.”

    Commenting further on the change, Ashish Bhasin added, “We are consolidating our capabilities under a global agency network, with a uniform identity across markets, in order to strengthen the coordination across our network and expand the high quality service we consistently provide. The most important ingredient in creating innovation in an ever-changing environment is collaboration. This realignment will fuel, just that in newer, more efficient ways. This will help us further accelerate the tremendous success that Dentsu Branded Agencies have experienced in India over the last year, including the spectacular performance at Goafest awards and in the area of new business.”

    There is no change in the leadership or staff of each of the individual units, Dentsu announced. Simi Sabhaney will continue as CEO and Vipul Thakkar as NCD of Dentsu India, Harjot Narang as President and Titus Upputuru as NCD of Dentsu One, and Amit Wadhwa as president and Soumitra Karnik as NCD of Dentsu Impact. Meanwhile, Narayan Devanathan continues as the group executive & strategy officer of Dentsu Branded Agencies, India.

  • Dentsu India elevates four execs; eyes No. 2 rank by 2017

    Dentsu India elevates four execs; eyes No. 2 rank by 2017

    MUMBAI: Dentsu India is set to move towards version 3.0 of its India story.  The company has a two-fold aim to transform the creative reputation of the Dentsu brand in India, bringing it into the top 5 and contribute towards the objective of taking the Dentsu Aegis Network towards an ambitious No. 2 position by 2017.

    In line with this, the roles of four key professionals in the India leadership team of Dentsu have been upgraded.

    The current CEO of Dentsu Creative Impact Group and national planning director (Dentsu India – North) Narayan Devanathan has been promoted with immediate effect to the newly created role of Dentsu India group executive & strategy officer.

    In his role, Devanathan will be the chief steward of the Dentsu brand in India, ensuring consistency of vision and output, in line with Dentsu’s global philosophy of good innovation. He will also play the role of an integrator with the other members of the Dentsu Aegis Network, both within and outside India, helping leverage the power of the network.

    In addition, he will continue to helm the two specialist units of Dentsu Mama Lab (dedicated to connecting brands with mothers meaningfully) and Citizen Dentsu (dedicated to connecting brands with social purpose).

    Dentsu Marcom branch head Harjot Narang has been promoted with immediate effect as the company’s president. In recognition of Narang’s contribution to the agency’s turnaround over the last four years, and his continued drive to catapult the agency to be counted among the top 3 agencies in the Delhi / NCR market, Narang will be charged with driving the pace of growth at Dentsu Marcom.

    Dentsu Creative Impact brand head Amit Wadhwa has been promoted with immediate effect as the agency’s president. 

    Over the last four years, Wadhwa has grown from heading the account management function to overseeing the branch’s operations, and has grown the agency from strength to strength. His charge, with more autonomy, will now be to transform the creative reputation of the agency while achieving never-before scale.

    Dentsu branded agencies India group CFO C.P Arora will have an expanded role in the Dentsu Aegis Network in India as well. He will now, in addition to his existing responsibilities, take charge as Dentsu Aegis Network India (North) CFO.

    Commenting on the developments, Dentsu Aegis Network, South Asia chairman & CEO Ashish Bhasin said, “We are now at the forefront of our next phase of growth in our creative agencies and it is important for us to recognise the excellent talent pool that we have within the network and give them more autonomy to better service our clients. Narayan, Harjot, Amit and C.P. are amongst the best that we have in the network and I am sure that, they will drive the Dentsu Creative Agencies to new heights and help Dentsu Aegis Network become the second largest agency group in India by end-2017, overturning for the first time the existing ranking which has historically been in place for over 80 years in India.”