HDFC Life looks to own birthdays; nudges both parents on long-term planning for kids

HDFC Life has rolled out a new ad film that urges parents to use their child's birthday as an occasion for long-term financial planning.

 

Conceptualised by Leo Burnett, the film features a couple and their young daughter at home. The father asks his daughter what she wants for her birthday. The daughter says she wants a princess doll. The father agrees. But she isn’t done. She starts listing what she wants for future birthdays – a dollhouse, video game, badi wali cycle, mobile, heel wale sandals and a trip to Disney World in America included. The father stops her saying he's not planned that far into the future. But the child’s mother replies confidently that they have planned for that and more – a vacation in the US and her future education there. The film ends with them celebrating their child’s birthday, having given her the substantial gift of a secure future.

 

On the new campaign, Sanjay Tripathy, senior executive vice president - marketing, product, and direct channels, said, “HDFC Life was one of the first brands to advertise and encourage buying child plans during school admissions and summer vacations to inculcate systematic and disciplined planning. We wanted to take this concept further and establish and own an occasion for buying a child plan similar to few other categories. Child’s birthday emerged as a perfect occasion as parents with young children usually invest a lot of time and money planning, but may not be necessarily thinking about the child’s secure future during this early period. We wanted to use this occasion, which occurs year-on-year to speak to both parents and encourage them to opt for long term financial plan for their child’s future. Our internal research also reiterated that for parents birthdays are relevant to their lives and buying the product on their child’s birthday will remind them to pay premium every year.”

 

“Secondly, the changing trend in society reflects that Indian parents have evolved and invest in the development of child together. However, the category continues to talk to fathers, overlooking the important role of a mother’s influencing power. Our research showed that financial planning for the child was top priority for mothers when it comes to life insurance. We wanted to tap into the potential of appealing to mothers, either for them to buy the product or to influence the father to do it. In either case, we found from our research that while consumers (fathers) knew they had to buy a child plan, they procrastinate as there are a lot of other rearing priorities when they are new parents. This is where the mother’s nurturing and influencing power comes into play - to ensure that the step is taken at the right time. We have captured this well in our film showing the mother, instead of the father, outlining that they have both planned for short and long term needs,” he added.

 

“Thirdly, our research showed that most parents do not buy child plan at the right time. We needed our communication to cue in financial planning at the right time. We did this by showing in our film a younger kid and young parents and one of our contextual ads also shows age for buying the product, which is between three to nine years so that parents can have long investment horizon of 10 to 15 years for bigger corpus available when the child turns 16, 18 or 21, ready to take up under or post graduation," said Tripathy.

  

KV Sridhar, chief creative officer, Indian subcontinent, Leo Burnett, said, “Most of the time, the important parenting decisions are overshadowed by urgent ones. Through our campaign, we’ve tried to communicate to parents that investing in a child plan at the right time is equally important. And we thought what better day than a child’s birthday to remind parents to start investing for their future. After all, only when they invest on time will their children get the support they need to fulfill their dreams when they grow up.”

 

Apart from television, the campaign will be seen in print, on OOH, radio, and digital.

 

Credits

Client: HDFC Life
Creative agency: Leo Burnett
Creative director:  Nikhil Mehrotra
Copywriter: Nikhil Mehrotra and Siddharth Mehta
Art director: Prasad Patil and Amit Thakur
Production house :Chrome Pictures
Director: Hemant Bhandari