Tata AIG launched an ad campaign themed ‘Expect the Expected’ featuring brand ambassador and actor Ranbir Kapoor on January 4, 2024, underlining its promise of ‘complete claims’. The spot features Rohit Shetty playing himself and directing his ‘expected’ over-the-top car action sequences, leading to an injured Kapoor landing up in hospital. The ‘complete claims’ from Tata AIG Health Insurance then come into play.
We caught up with Amit Akali, Co-founder & Chief Creative Officer, Wondrlab, the agency behind the campaign, for more about the strategy, creative and execution.
Tell us about ‘Complete Claims’ as the promise. Has it been featured before in the brand’s campaigns?
No, it’s not been featured in campaigns by Tata AIG Health before. We’ve been studying this, discussing it with the team. What it boils down to is that what the customer really wants is the claim to be as complete as possible. The moment of reckoning is the moment of claim. And in the entire system we realised that Tata AIG was built to give as much claim as possible, which is not the industry norm. At Tata AIG, right from the MD down to the junior-most person, the whole system is geared up to offer complete claims. And it’s also something that’s really important to the customer – it matters most to a health insurance customer. And obviously, this comes from transparency. And while that’s a basic, that actually may not happen in the category.
The overall thought that we had was ‘Expect the Expected.’ You normally talk about expecting the unexpected, but in this case just expecting the expected is a damn good thing. We had this thought that you can depend on Tata AIG, you can trust Tata AIG and therefore you can expect the expected to happen – which in this case is complete claims. So that’s how this entire thought of claims came about, with an overarching thought of ‘Expect the Expected’. That is where the campaign idea actually came from.
Was there a consumer pain point / concern that led to the adoption of this promise as the key message?
Like I said, the journey was this: that claims are an important takeout or the most important reason for the consumer to be with a brand. It’s a moment of reckoning for her/him to take insurance. And Tata AIG as a company (Tata AIG) is completely geared up principally in every way possible to give as much claim as possible. Therefore the focus on that one thing of complete claims. In fact, the creative idea itself came from there when we said, ‘Expect the Expected.’
Ranbir Kapoor is our ambassador. But we said, who else probably does stuff that is as expected or who’s experienced enough, expert enough to constantly be able to deliver on something?
And we said, it’s actually Rohit Shetty. He’s an expert in a certain genre and constantly gives you that. There are certain things that are expected of a Rohit Shetty film. You’ll never get disappointed on that. Typically you get to see bashed up cars, exploding cars, crazy stunts and action, people tumbling, goons flying, machine guns and cops with moustaches.
That’s where the creative idea actually came from. It’s also very interesting when a creative idea can be based on a cultural conversation. Right now, the timing is brilliant because there’s a lot of talk about ‘Animal’ and about Ranbir giving blockbusters and suddenly moving into the action genre. And who else is bigger than Rohit Shetty in the action genre?
When you base a campaign on culture, it can be really successful. It’s a common conversation that was happening and we based it on that. Which is why when the PR started about Ranbir and Shetty collaborating, it really picked up. The whole of yesterday and the night before, the conversation has been on the fact that they’re collaborating – but they’re collaborating for an ad film (not a feature film).
What made you think of this plot with ambassador Ranbir Kapoor? Were there other creative routes explored?
I think the ambassador and the routes come only after the basic strategy is decided. Once we decided that (a) we were about complete claims and transparency and (b) we were about ‘Expecting the Expected’, of giving what we promised, then you think about what’s the best way of bringing that alive. You think about how that’s actually happening and who else does that. From the thought ‘Expect the Expected’, we said the person who’s really delivered on that is Rohit Shetty.
We realised that could be a very interesting cultural conversation between Shetty and Ranbir because everybody’s interested in who’s collaborating, who’s doing what together next, and they’ve really never been together. So then the thought came of putting these two people together. And of course, the challenge was them actually agreeing to do it. The great thing was we actually got Rohit on board. In a way you’re making a joke out of what he does, but he was a great sport and took that on. It was amazing because you had these two celebs coming together playing themselves, so there’s that authenticity to it. This is really from their lives and I think that’s what people always relate to.
Will there be more films in the campaign?
This is the launch of the idea ‘Expect the Expected.’ This is the main film. There are a lot of interesting small films you’ll see. There’s a lot of 360 with it. In today’s day and age, you can’t just have one message and put it out for a long time. You have to constantly have conversations. So there are a lot of conversations that will come from Shetty and Ranbir that you will be seeing.
How long did it take to shoot the film? How long did it take from concept to final out?
This was actually super quick. So we actually had another film on board that we were ready to kind of shoot. As a team, the thought changed to claims and the strategy changed and we came back with this set of films. So literally, I think from strategy to release was done in almost three weeks, which is very crazy for a campaign. It was possibly one of the quickest campaigns.
A lot of work had to go into it. You had to get the right director on board, which is where Razneesh Ghai (Razy) came in. He has done ‘Dhaakad’ with Kangana Ranaut. He’s one of the best directors and great with humour. We needed a director who can get action, humour and performance together.
We actually got Rohit Shetty’s action team on board for this. There’s a guy called Rodney who’s fantastic – he’s one of the best action directors in Bollywood. We got him on board.
That entire car chase we could do only once because you can’t keep blowing up cars. We had one take to get that car stunt, but had a lot of preparation. It was a two-day shoot, but a lot of stunt preparation, action preparation went into that.
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