Aviva pads up with Sachin to teach cricket on digital

'Padding up with Sachin' and 'Sachin Off Guard' use cricket as a medium to talk about the importance of protection in one's life.

Protection is important - be it while playing cricket or while planning the future. Using this insight, life insurance company Aviva has weaved its latest campaign, which uses cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. Tendulkar mentors a young boy and teaches him a few cricketing shots along with talking about the importance of ensuring protection.

Aviva, in association with BBDO, the creative agency for the campaign, has produced several webisodes. In the webisode 'Padding up with Sachin', Tendulkar teaches the boy how to play a straight drive. He talks about the important points that need to kept in mind while playing the shot. In another webisode, 'Sachin Off Guard', the Master Blaster talks about how he, as a father, ensured that he was always fully protected while he was out on the field.

Through this campaign, Aviva aims to communicate to young fathers about the importance of financial planning for their children's secure future and also consolidate its position in the category.

The campaign mainly targets parents in the age group of 28-44 years and has been launched only on the digital platform including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Tendulkar will also promote the campaign on his Facebook page, which has a huge following of close to 10 million.

Rishi Piparaiya, director, marketing and bancassurance, Aviva India, says, "Aviva's brand strategy, based on the father-child relationship, highlights the importance of a father's role as a protector in his child's life, whether financial, physical or emotional. Hence, through the 'Padding up with Sachin' series, Aviva seeks to provide a unique opportunity for fathers to train and engage with their kids."

Currently, Aviva does not plan to take the campaign to other media platforms and will wait to see the impact on the digital medium. Speaking on why the digital medium was chosen for the campaign, Piparaiya says, "Mass media like print and television play a significant role in any media mix. However, in our category, 66 per cent of life insurance buyers research online but buy offline. Hence, it is critical for us to be prominent in this space for brand consideration. Also, we have a robust online business and are among the market leaders here. So, the digital medium will help us further consolidate our position here."

Aviva will soon come up with the next series of videos under this category that will feature Tendulkar teaching some of his trademark shots such as cover drive, pull shot and square cut. The webisodes comprise the first phase of the campaign; in the next phase, it will cover content on financial literacy, products and parenting for young fathers. The first episode of parenting series - Daddy 3.0 - covers the latest developments in technology and gadgets to help fathers bond better with their kids.

Aviva will also shortly release its 'Product Center' and a series of engaging product related videos on Facebook.

Piparaiya says, "Product Center will be an innovation in the insurance sector as no one else has integrated their social media channels to product centres as yet. This section will explain all the products, which will interest young fathers in a simplistic manner. We will also have animation-based video series in a storytelling format to educate our TG on the benefits and nuances of insurance."

The Aviva Group is a UK-based insurance company and one of the world's oldest insurance groups. It first began operations in 1696. In India, the company has a joint venture with the Dabur Group and has a paid up capital of Rs 2004 crore. It provides life insurance, general insurance and asset management services through a distribution network of 134 branches spread across nearly 1,000 towns and cities.