Insurance brand dumbs down the word 'cover', qawwali style

The campaign by WATConsult takes the word 'cover' literally - punning on Indian consumers' habit of keeping costly items covered up.

In association with DAN's digital agency WATConsult, IndiaFirst Life insurance's new campaign is a literal take on 'coverage.' The campaign is titled ‘The Cover Qawwali’ and uses the hashtag The campaign comprises three parts - a TVC, a microsite, and a print campaign. The microsite has been designed by WATConsult and invites users to upload photos of the 'unique' covers they use to cover up personal items.

The campaign comprises three parts - a TVC, a microsite, and a print campaign. The microsite has been designed by WATConsult and invites users to upload photos of the 'unique' covers they use to cover up personal items.

The brand IndiaFirst Life is nascent in the insurance category, with roughly ten years of existence under its belt. "The category is huge with legacy players doing very similar kind of advertising, hence the first brief was to create awareness for the brand with some amount of disruption," says Heeru Dingra, CEO WATConsult. Dhingra adds that the brand wanted to target a younger audience that looks for 'meaning more than logic'.

"Our approach was to understand our audience and craft a campaign which would give a meaning for the brand in their lives. As far as the consumer insight is concerned, it's funnily ironic that Indians are a possessive breed when it comes to products that they purchase. We Indians are obsessed with protecting things that we love. This insight however doesn't hold true to the most precious thing for a human, which is life itself," he says. Dhingra adds that they also found a large number of searches for covers happening on e-commerce platform Amazon.

Rayomand J Patell, aka Rayo, an adman who has worked closely with the BFSI sector for many years, feels that the ad is not particularly groundbreaking, but is a good effort to reach out to consumers. "The campaign is reminiscent of a simpler time, but I'm not sure if it'll resonate with today's audiences," he says. Rayo adds that a few years ago, dating app TrulyMadly released a similar ad, and that the song -and-dance style of qawwali is not new.

Also Read: Max Life Insurance takes new age customers through a Virtual Reality tour of ‘Journey of Life’

"For the last 30-40 years, players in the insurance sector in India have been trying to convince people to insure themselves. All the work on these lines has been targeted at the bottom of the pyramid in sophisticated ways. Then again, who are we to say that something is sophisticated or dumbed down? As long as it works..." he says.

Rayo feels some thought has been put into the ad film as it does not associate with a Bollywood celebrity or with cricket. "I think it's a reasonably original insight," he says. "On an unrelated note, I like the fact that it uses the Qawwali style because we're living in times when religion is a sensitive issue. The ad could've had the same impact, irrespective of whether they chose to use poetry, streaming or any different form of execution, " he signs off.