Manager Sahab leads education campaign on life insurance

Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance's new campaign features 'Manager Sahab', who answers basic questions on life insurance.

In a bid to educate general readers about life insurance and help them take informed financial choices, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance has launched a customer education and awareness campaign.

The print campaign, which kick-started on January 28, creatively engages consumers with the character, 'Manager Sahab'. The character is modelled around a bank manager, who is believed to induce customers' trust. The bespectacled finance whiz Manager Sahab is shown answering various life insurance queries asked by people from different walks of life in a blurb format. The questions broadly pertain to issues of suitability, safety, returns and product liquidity.

A public interest initiative, the campaign will run for two months and has been created by the brand's in-house team. It will be put out as a series in English and other language national and regional newspapers. The campaign is addressed mainly towards urban, educated, salaried consumers, urban businessmen and rural businessmen in the age group of 35-50 years.

Vishakha RM, director, sales and marketing, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance, says, "The campaign is not about the company or our products. It's wholly focused on consumers. Most people don't know enough to ask questions about life insurance. Through this campaign, we try to address this and tell them what they really need to know and should be asking."

The objective of the campaign is to educate and simplify various life insurance concepts to the customers. It is timed to coincide with the financial year end, when people look for investment options, Vishakha adds. She informs that the purpose of limiting the campaign to print was to hold the attention span of readers to soak in the information.

Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance is a collaboration of two public sector banks - Canara Bank (51 per cent stake) and Oriental Bank of Commerce (23 per cent stake) - and privately held HSBC Insurance (Asia Pacific) (26 per cent stake), the Asian insurance arm of HSBC. Not surprisingly, most of the brand's clients are customers of the three banks.

The company, set up in mid-2008, has access to around 53 million customers and a nation-wide network of above 5,400 branches of Canara Bank, HSBC and Oriental Bank of Commerce. As a result, the company enjoys a strong distribution network and in-depth local market knowledge of Canara Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce, along with the insurance experience of HSBC.

In order to cater to rural and economically weaker sections of society, the company has tied up with three rural regional banks (RRBs) - Pragathi Gramin Bank in Karnataka, Shreyas Gramin Bank in Uttar Pradesh and South Malabar Gramin Bank in Kerala. Together, the RRBs boast more than 800 branches and customer penetration of about 8 million customers.