Kshema General Insurance the ‘Official General Insurance Partner’ of IPL team Punjab Kings is doing a ‘Kshema Secure Hands’ digital campaign. As part of this campaign, Kshema is running a contest for fans 18 years and above on its Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X handles offering a winner match tickets and merchandise.
This IP, created with Punjab Kings, will highlight the best fielding effort (catch taken, run saved, run out or stumping effected) of Punjab players in every match through the IPL 2025 season, reflecting Kshema’s ethos of trust, reliability, and protection. The IP is designed to create awareness about Kshema’s industry-first insurance products and aims to reconnect the IPL franchise with its roots and reignite the passion of its fans across India.
A contestant needs to do is predict the Punjab Kings player to be crowned the ‘Kshema Secure Hands’ of the match. The winner will be decided by Punjab Kings from a shortlist of the best fielding efforts from that specific match. Those contestants whose prediction match this choice become part of the lucky draw and a jury will pick the winner. This winner would win tickets to Punjab Kings home and away matches and goodies including autographed merchandise.
Medianews4u.com caught up Bhaskar Thakur, CMO, Kshema General Insurance Limited
Q. From a marketing perspective what are the priorities and focus areas for Kshema General Insurance in 2025?
The priority is to create awareness about brand Kshema and communicate Kshema’s value proposition to our core TG through an innovative media mix. We want to meet our TG where they are and the campaign “Sirf Bima Nahi, Kshema!” is the pivot around which our marketing activities for the year would revolve.
We started the year by announcing a partnership with Punjab Kings for the IPL season 2025. This was a calculated decision to give us a longer runway before segueing into the marketing campaign for the summer season.
Q. Which are the key TGs and markets that will be focused on for growth? Is the company mainly targeting North India?
Our TG is the farmer since we focus on crop insurance. We are present in more than 20 states and union territories and expanding. However, we have earmarked 11 of these as key-drivers for Kshema’s growth.
Some of these states include Punjab & Haryana, Rajasthan & Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and the southern states of Andhra & Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. We are relying on our differentiated insurance offerings in these markets to drive profitability.
Q. Last year Kshema roped in Mudramax as media partner. Is the focus going to rest on integrated strategies that blend online and offline platforms? What marketing innovations can one expect?
Our focus will be on crafting integrated strategies to reach a TG which is niche. It has its own characteristics.
We are a DTC insurance provider selling our solutions via our proprietary app, which is part of the Kshema platform, but our TG’s primary consumption is still through traditional media. So, we have to devise strategies to harness both traditional and digital media.
Q. What role will Kshema’s Punjab Kings partnership play in the marketing mix? Could you talk about the creative brainstorming that took play with Punjab Kings to create the IP?
IPL is a showpiece event and associating with it presents inherent advantages for brands by creating mass awareness among larger audiences.
It is the most watched sports event of the year across demographics, generating very high engagement. Hence, it made sense for us to ride the IPL bandwagon.
Q. What is being done during this mega event?
To create engagement and content over a sustained period of time, we decided to partner with an IPL team. We zeroed in on Punjab because it is primarily agrarian and one of our key markets, making Punjab Kings a natural fit. PBKS is known for its strong connection with its roots, giving us the platform to reach out to our broader TG across India.
Creating the IP was an interesting process. We were toying with ideas to bring cricket, farming, and protection together to convey Kshema’s brand ethos of trust, reliability, and protection.
We chose to lock-in on the last of these words because it is almost synonymous with insurance. And a good piece of fielding is the insurance that can make a difference between a win or loss. This is how our exclusive IP “Kshema Secure Hands” was born.
Q. Fans in the IPL according to a recent study don’t recall seeing more than a few ads. As big as the IPL is wastage is a challenge. How will the IP help Kshema standout in the clutter?
That’s a great question. You are absolutely correct because there’s a deluge of new campaigns during the IPL. If I have to think of a global parallel then, IPL is closer to the Super Bowl of the US, around which brands launch new campaigns and TVCs because of the eyeballs and the high engagement rate.
The advantage of IPL is that it goes on for almost 2 months unlike the Super Bowl which is a single-day event. That of course gives everyone to come up with their own strategy to remain visible and relevant.
Our IP is already proving to be a huge success because we created an online contest around it to differentiate it from other campaigns. We are trying to communicate our message in a way which is easier to consume. Kshema Secure Hands is delivering that because the contest ensures participation from across the country and the give-away includes match tickets and merchandise for winners, creating a direct bond with cricket fans.
We also have access to the team, to create content and sustain the campaign and take it to the grass roots. All this put together, allows our TG to understand our value proposition.
Q. Influencer marketing during the IPL is a trend. Does Kshema have plans in the influencer marketing arena during and after the IPL?
It is part of our marketing mix, and we have gone about it in a very calculated manner. We deliberately chose a cricket influencer who is a fan first. This makes it more authentic and the engagement more organic because millions of other fans identify with him.
We are hoping this outreach among the fans, among whom there is a healthy overlap between farmers and their kin, will help us build a relationship of trust with our TG.
We are leveraging the influencer marketing to drive engagement for the Kshema Secure Hands IP, and we are seeing encouraging results. As the season progresses, we will have different type of influencers join in for specific outcomes.
Q. Is Kshema General Insurance tying up with other IPL teams? Beyond the IPL is it looking at other cricket and sports properties?
We have not tied up with any other IPL team. We made our foray into cricket and IPL with Punjab Kings, and it has been a great relationship.
We are certainly open to evaluating opportunities across sports that will fit out strategy. Any such association has to be organic because it has to further Kshema as a brand.
Q. How is cricket helping insurance brands drive trust and financial inclusion? Does Bollywood also help in this regard? What are the other marketing vehicles that help insurance brands drive trust and financial inclusion?
Cricket or sports is live, unscripted, real. Sports is about moments, either you win or you lose that particular moment and the fans are on this journey with the action on the field.
These moments go on to make the whole game, which makes it incredibly visceral and lends a degree of authenticity to the action. Moreover, sports is full of stories of underdogs making it big. So, when sportspersons endorse a brand, it becomes more credible for the consumers.
Q. Hyper personalisation is an important focus area across categories. What plans does Kshema General Insurance have in this regard?
We understand everyone’s needs are different. And this journey starts with listening to your customers. It is a great art which we marry with science using our AI-based algorithms and location awareness to assess, model and price insurance risks adequately to create parametric insurance products to serve customised insurance solutions.
Kshema Sukriti was created to give consumers the freedom to design their own insurance policy by choosing the perils from which they want to protect their produce.
Q. What role will on-ground marketing activities play for the company in 2025 through roadshows, seminars, workshops etc?
On-ground marketing activities are very important for our category. These give us the opportunity to connect with various stakeholders in the insurance ecosystem – from consumers to partners and vendors.
We participate in industry events, both in India and abroad, ranging from insurance to agriculture. We conduct awareness drives at a hyperlocal level, and leverage our digital kiosks to give premium experience to users while utilising our network of Point of Sale persons to further our relationship with our core TG.
