Re-inventing and re-focusing in 2021

Re-inventing and re-focusing in 2021

Shefali Khalsa, Head – Brand and Corporate Communications, SBI General Insurance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted businesses world over. The general insurance industry in India has been no exception. With a focus on reinventing existing business models with digitisation at the core, the general insurance industry is well on the path of recovery.

The pandemic has ushered in a “digital-first” wave that can be considered as an important aspect for course correction of the general insurance landscape. While digital technology adoption was well underway for most insurers, the pandemic presented the real scope of next generation digital technologies.

Digital transformation that was on the threshold of significant change in the insurance industry, is now focussed on growth via innovation and usage of new sources of customer data to enhance customer experiences.

While there are many challenges in a post-pandemic environment, the opportunities are significant as well. With the many learnings of the past few pandemic months, we are prepared to reimagine new ways of delivering value through an optimal mix of traditional and digital marketing initiatives.

As we prepare to step into a new year, we turn our focus on the following areas.

Refocusing attention on campaign platforms:

Past few months has given brands access to captive audiences on social media platforms like never before. As individuals turned to social media for everything from entertainment to information, the BFSI sector too looked at social media platforms as ideal vehicles to keep communication open with all stakeholders.

Thus, even traditionalists who had so far not considered social media campaigns witnessed the benefits of the same because of the reach of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIN, Twiiter etc. These new learnings have given us fresh perspectives on the use of social media, and we are looking forward to many exciting and innovative marketing campaigns and associations on social media platforms in the year ahead.

Focus on user-generated content (UGC)

With the COVID-triggered lockdown, user-generated content was at an all-time high as people wanted to channelise their creativity. On the other hand, for brands, it was an opportunity to assess the efficacy of user-generated content for marketing as compared to traditional marketing campaigns through print and audio-visual content. Going ahead we hope to ideate more on this front and come up with creative and out-of-the-box ideas that may include strategic alliances and partnerships, cross-brand promotions, influencer usage on social media platforms and celebrity outreach for different categories of customers.

Channel focus

In the upcoming year, we will also look at innovative channel focus through B2B campaigns. As we witnessed with the initial impact of COVID 19, businesses across the world were forced to consider communication techniques that they had not considered earlier. With consumer behaviour having altered considerably due to COVID 19, we will consider alternate and unsaturated routes in B2B campaigns to increase awareness about insurance.

Communication through innovative videos

It has been a trend by now that videos have been more effective mode of communication. After all, a video can convey messages in the form of a story in just few minutes. With increased usage of social media and other digital platforms, we have seen variety of videos being innovated. Also, smartphones and affordable internet connection has been a booster for video consumption.

With this trend of enhanced video communication that is here to stay, video marketing will be an increased area of focus for us too, as we will look at creating original content and attempt to create conversions through various types of video content such as shoppable videos, self-shoot videos, at home videos (using celebrities or employees) and chroma shot videos.

It may suffice to say that 2020 has been a year of great learning and fresh perspectives for all of us in various manners. Armed with a fresh outlook we continue to boost our brand affinity and want to be recognised as an insurer to modern India as well as the rural segment which is the real Bharat. Keeping this in mind, we have also revamped our brand identity, recently, which clearly defines our brand promise to our urban and rural customers – SBI General, Suraksha Aur Bharosa Dono.