Marketing in the times of COVID-19: Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance

• In our latest interview series, we talk to brands to understand how they are coping with the new normal and their strategies towards navigating these difficult times.
• In today’s interview, Chandramohan Mehra, CMO, Bajaj Allianz Life and Bajaj Allianz General Insurance shared how they have altered their marketing strategy to surf through the challenges posed today.
• Mehra told us how the brand is using digital media at its best to connect with its consumers.
• It has also on-boarded fitness experts to keep their audience motivated and remind them to build a strong immune system to survive in today’s challenging environment.

In wake of COVID-19, the anticipation of staying at home for a prolonged period of time may have become overwhelming. Marketers have, ergo, started listening to social media conversations, drawing insights and building their campaigns to support their customers in this journey.

These unprecedented days have posed a lot of challenges and questions in our minds. People are therefore re-evaluating their financial investments, health insurance policies and have started taking good care of their health.

To help its consumers adjust in this new normal, Bajaj Allianz Life has empowered its investment advisory to make pitch calls through WhatsApp, webinars, and has created video content, blogs to solve the common queries.

The life insurer has also on-boarded fitness experts like Mandira Bedi and Anushka Panjwani to keep their audience motivated and remind them to maintain their physical and mental well-being.

We caught up with Chandramohan Mehra, CMO, Bajaj Allianz Life and Bajaj Allianz General Insurance to further understand how they have altered their marketing strategy to stay relevant today and ask for a few things he has learned about operating in today’s volatile environment.

Excerpts:

Q) How have the past few weeks been for the brand, considering the country has been in a lockdown?

It has been a challenging time for all of us, yet I’d say the constraints faced during the lockdown have helped us identify several opportunities. Insights gained from customers, employees and partners during this time will help us make relevant interventions in our customer experience journey.

Q) What is your marketing strategy during the period of COVID-19? How have you tried to build a connection with your audience during these tough times?

Through our advanced digital services including WhatsApp services, chat bot and customer self-servicing portals, our focus has been to cater to servicing needs of customers. In context of market volatility, we have intensified our investment advisory through Webinars, blogs and video content aiding long term decisions for our customers. To ensure physical and emotional well-being of our customers, we have partnered with an array of fitness experts to bring live streaming of “Fitness from Home” on our social media pages.

Q) How is your brand making a difference in terms of spreading awareness?

In these unusual times, we are doing our bit towards providing access to fitness regimes from experts, to our employees, partners, agents, customers and many others, for them to stay physically and emotionally healthy. Towards this, we are offering LIVE streaming sessions on Yoga, Meditation, Wellness on our social media platforms, by renowned fitness experts to keep people fit and active from the safe confines of their homes. This is in addition to the educational ‘Keep Calm, Stay Invested,’ engagement series with our investments team that provide relevant investment advisory to our customers, partners, advisors and employees to manage their investments in these times.

Q) TV viewership and digital engagement continue to increase, where are you betting your money?

Choice of medium is a function of the marketing task at hand. Obviously, a strategic integrated strategy will get desired yields.

Q) What are the few key learnings for you as a brand custodian in the last few weeks?

There is a surge of first-timers who are and will be transacting or buying online during the lockdown – be it for groceries, medicines, telecommunications or insurance. I believe this trend will continue in the insurance industry and we will see an increased usage and reliance on digital tools by both financial intermediaries and customers across profiles. As more and more stakeholders take to the digital platforms, it is essential for brands now to make the online buying experience of consumers frictionless, and sometimes even assisted in case of first-timers.