Naveen Kukreja, Group CMO, PolicyBazaar.com & Director, PaisaBazaar.com (non-insurance business) talks about doubling the brand budget, the company’s focus on building awareness for the brand and leveraging its association with the ICC Cricket World Cup
By Saloni Dutta
Q] How is the brand leveraging its association with the ICC Cricket World Cup?
We chose the ICC Cricket World Cup over IPL due to its timing. February and March are important months from an insurance perspective. We were able to get some interesting options within our budget. Since we are experimenting for the first time, we are not going to be massive like an Airtel or Hero Honda, and won’t spend on those lines.
During the World Cup, we are using TV as a dominant medium. We are going to be present on HD as it is more in line with our target segment. We are one of the broadcast sponsors for the World Cup telecast on the Star Sports HD channels. As a sponsor, we get to dominate the World Cup across 34 key matches. We have also taken the highlights section of Star Sports SD on the evening time band. We had taken around 20 spots for the India-Pakistan match. On social media, we are currently doing a campaign called #CompareKar since comparison is at the core of our brand. The campaign leverages our partnership with the Cricket World Cup to innovatively engage with the audience. It was trending during the India-Pakistan match on Twitter.
Q] What are the marketing efforts for your new offering PaisaBazaar?
Our marketing initiatives on this front are also getting rolled out during the World Cup. The genesis of PaisaBazaar was essentially that we have been doing insurance comparisons for the last 4-5 years; we believe there’s a similar opportunity in other finance products. The proposition was similar, to offer a platform which provides choice and comparison of all banks. We started with payday loans 24 hours and credit cards, and are thinking about adding mutual funds and savings options in the future.
Q] How is the app performing in comparison to the website?
We launched the Android version in December and the Apple version in mid-January. It is very recent but we are seeing positive feedback. From 10% last year, about 25% of our visitors are coming through mobile now, both app and WAP combined. Mobile traffic is going to increase and we will have close to 50% or even higher consumers accessing us through mobile next year same time.
Q] What is your philosophy as a company?
The insurance industry has had some challenges which form the basis of our philosophy. With limited options, consumers have trouble researching products. Looking at persistency data, while contracts are usually for 10-15 years, only about 25% people typically stay with the policy at the end of five years. We offer one platform for comparison where consumers can pick from across 40 odd insurances and everything is transparent since it’s an online platform. We also play an advisory role matching consumers with the right product.
We try to convert these principles in our marketing communications. So far it has been about comparison between different options. We have also evolved so that consumers can buy policies online. At the moment we roughly get 2.5 million visits a month, and about 1.8 million are unique visitors. Of this, about 35,000 people buy policies online and complete the end-to-end transaction from us. Across all kinds of insurance that are growing at about 100% a year for the last 3-4 years, we are almost doubling it every year.
Q] How is the monetary push being channelized towards marketing?
We are focusing on two categories with the capital infusion: brand and communications, and technology. We need to begin with building brand awareness amongst consumers. Right now, we have a good offering, but the reason why consumers won’t think of us is either because they’re not aware or they’re aware but not confident. In the last four years, persistency has grown to 95% for online versus about 65% for offline in insurance.
We need strong technology at the back end to make sure we’re integrated with all insurance companies. Now that we sell online, we try and integrate end-to-end for which we have to join with their operations engine for a seamless experience. We are also trying to integrate with their policy issuance process. This requires a lot of integration at the back end and hence technology is the second big push.
Q] What is you brand’s positioning in the financial marketplace?
From the market or consumer’s perspective, it is a unique position. The brand proposition is simple. There are two or three benefits a consumer has and these are played out in our communication. One is that it is very simple to compare and takes only 30-60 seconds. Secondly, by comparing you are likely to save money because there are offerings at different prices and you can choose what suits you best. Thirdly, understanding the right product for you. Our brand positioning is across these three pillars.
Q] What has been your strategy to communicate these brand propositions?
We have done two kinds of commercials. One is focused on car insurance that talks about the savings aspect which is about 20% of the premium for an average sedan. The second communication is around ‘Ullu Mat Bano’ which is about choosing the right product for you. What we see in life insurance is that people end up buying not pure risk cover but a savings product which, if it was explained transparently, would not be a good product for the consumer because it gives returns of about 4-4.5%, which in the Indian environment is not great.
Our future communication positioning is also simple. Compare and you will save, compare and you will likely get the right product or you will know about what you are buying, more transparently. We still have an awareness challenge in terms of how do we grow 10 times of what we are today. Right now we are thinking if there is a known person talking about the same message, there’s a good chance it will amplify the message. From a business perspective, increasing awareness is one of the big focus areas for 2015-16.
Q] How have you used different media vehicles for communication?
As an e-commerce company, we use Digital media a lot, primarily for ROI driven campaigns such as search or display campaigns. We have started piloting in other Digital platforms such as social media and YouTube. TV works well for us too. Its audio-visual nature tends to give us a better response, and better effect in terms of visibility. We have used Radio in small, focused fashions in certain cities, such as metros where we have a large presence. Since insurance is not an easy subject, it is difficult to communicate it through Print. So we have not used Print extensively.
Q] How has your marketing budget changed in the last few years?
In terms of our focus what we spent on the brand in 2013-14, we more than doubled our brand budget, made it 2.5 times in 2014-15. And we are likely to double our brand budget in 2015-16. It is a high focus area.
Q] How do you see the category growing in the coming year?
Although we have been growing at 100%, it’s still in low single digit percentage points as a share of the overall insurance market. The last 3-4 years have been tough on the insurance industry where the growth has been low, and in some cases de-growth. We hope this will change once the new Insurance Bill is passed. It will lead to some capital infusion and more flexibility in the regulation where the regulator will help the industry to innovate and grow. If the overall industry grows, the online as a percentage is likely to grow.
ABOUT THE BRAND
PolicyBazaar is India’s largest online financial services platform and is an InfoEdge (Naukri.com), Intel Capital, Inventus Capital, Tiger Global Management and Ribbit Capital Investee Company. The portal specializes in making purchase decisions easy by helping consumers with analysis of financial products based on price, quality and key features. It showcases an array of insurance plans offered by almost all insurers as well as up-to-date information on financial products and prompt, solution-driven customer service.
MARKETING TIP
Try and understand how you are adding value to consumers and pro-actively listen to what they are saying, through formal and informal means.
CMO FILE
Naveen Kukreja is responsible for leading the overall marketing efforts at PolicyBazaar.com and strengthening the brand presence. He also heads the expansion efforts for the company in the non-insurance space. He has experience of over 13 years in the financial services sector, having worked with Capital One Bank in the UK and Citibank in India and most recently, as the SVP of Marketing and Strategy at Aviva Life Insurance.
FACTS
Creative Agency: Lowe Lintas + Partners
Media Agency: Maxus
Social and Digital Agency: In-house
PR Agency: In-house
Feedback: saloni.dutta@exchange4media.com
