Chapter 1 emphasizes that marketing should be understood holistically in terms of customer needs. What happens when these needs are not fully conscious to the individual? What happens when the target market is unware of the very category within which the company brand is located? EFU Life’s Humrahi Web Series is a wonderful example of a company transforming a category (Life Insurance) from “boring” to interesting. The case also illustrates an equally wonderful use of segmentation, targeting and positioning in enabling the company to target young millennials through digital marketing-based webisodes. The digital webisode campaign that was launched steered clear of using fear appeal to sell insurance. EFU Life used GDN in its media planning. It used Google’s dynamic targeting to place its ads appropriately. Asim Azhar was used to generate ‘talkability’ and buzz. The case also sets the tone for this book’s emphasis on measurement in marketing by setting up UTM tracking codes. Even though the case does not address it explicitly, it can be used by marketing instructors to generate a discussion around how digital marketing is different from classical or traditional or TVC-based marketing (Dr. Aamir Khan, Case Advisor).
In Pakistan, Life insurance is a product marketed to the bread earner, typically a male member of the family. It is a category so often considered to be just about the ‘death benefit’, providing financial security to the family should something happen to the policyholder.
EFU Life as a brand has steered clear of using fear appeal to sell insurance. The brand believes that people need to be inspired and marketing should serve as a tool to make the audience aware of how life insurance can help them in fulfilling their life goals and dreams.
EFU Life’s Humrahi
One of the most clutter-breaking marketing breakthroughs in Pakistani industry in 2018-2020 came in a sector which, ironically, had long been considered boring and morbid, especially by the younger consumer.
By targeting millennials using an innovative marketing campaign, EFU Life attracted this important segment on digital platforms to invest in their future self through a compelling web series named “Humrahi” – which essentially means your partner in life.
Humrahi: Modernist, Progressive and Forward-Looking
Humrahi was launched by EFU Life, Pakistan’s first private Life Insurance company, in 2018. Two years later, it seemed that all the brand indicators had risen significantly compared to the beginning of the series. In addition, the sales of EFU Life’s products had risen as well, and the average premium coming in from the viewers and converts of the Humrahi web series was considerably higher than from other communication platforms.
What was even more satisfying than the rise in both brand and revenue indicators was the singular accomplishment of EFU Life in developing a strategy that focused on the millennials, a group not tapped by an insurance category player earlier, and not known for its love for Life Insurance as they often have not been able to resonate with the category. EFU Life had not only targeted this vast, unmet potential group of young consumers, it had used its modernist, forward-looking, progressive web series, disseminated through the social media, not only to attract this segment, but also to convert them to buy its products. This campaign had been customized even within the target segment: Different webisodes and different snippets targeted different audiences within the millennials.
This was done for the first time within the industry. EFU Life had not only created space for its own products; it had also created category awareness and category interest for a large pool of young consumers who were now realizing the importance of buying insurance tailored to their specific needs. Since EFU Life was the first mover in this large segment, it hoped that the millennials would retain their brand loyalty as they grew older.
Pulling the Millennials in by Gripping Content
EFU Life understood that millennials were perhaps aware of life insurance, but this category had not seeped into their consideration sets, much less resulted in conversions. One reason for this was their perception of life insurance as “boring” and for “old people”. This younger segment was pulled in more by ratings and reviews. They would go online to some trusted groups, search for brands and would look for what people were saying about those brands before purchasing the product.
Some four years ago, EFU Life decided to enter this market segment, but not by directly asking them to buy their products. The idea was to create digital content that would be gripping enough to pull them in. This would be done through a story telling format. The objectives were to alter the perception of life insurance from not being a priority to being a necessity in life, and to showcase life insurance as a way for millennials to achieve their life goals. What EFU Life did not want to do was to repeat what was being done in the industry: create a single communication format and force-feed it to all segments. They wanted to speak to the millennials in their language, around their situations, and create interest to draw them towards life insurance. It was important to humanize the brand, by creating digital-specific content that resonates with millennials, and position life insurance as a smart choice for youngsters who were planning their future.
Humrahi Speaks in the Language of Youth
The best way to grab the attention of the millennials was to engage them through storytelling, creating webisodes using bite sized content. The market was segmented and targeted as follows: The Primary target composed of millennials aged 25-40 that might be starting a new chapter in life, a new job, getting married or having a child. The Secondary target composed of individuals aged 41-50+ that had settled in life and were looking to ensure a good future for their family and planning their retirement. Finally, the Tertiary target, aged 21-24, that were pursuing their higher education or starting out in their first jobs.
The series starts with Maha and Ahad’s introduction, where they converse with the audience mentioning that their parents have arranged for them to meet for the first time to assess each other as possible marriage partners. When Maha asks him if he would let her to work post-marriage, Ahad counter-asks: Would you let me? This sets the tone for messaging that appeals to Millennials: equality in relationship, decent humor and women pursuing career after marriage.
The brand team felt it was very important to engage with the social media viewers and to keep them engaged in Ahad’s and Maha’s journey, so after their first meeting, a snippet was introduced where they throw a question to the social media viewers on whether they should get married or not.
The later webisodes not only maintained this tone but also added the themes of working professionals who are both homemakers, share household responsibilities as a couple, mutual respect, a setting which makes sense to them, but above all a lack of fear in positioning so rarely seen in life insurance ads.
In the first episode, only the minutest hint of planning for the future was present. In the second webisode though, the hint deepens when, in response to the pregnant Maha’s question, Ahad suggests that the right “plans” would guarantee the future of the baby.
Season 1 had successfully generated interest in the millennials, a result of the viewership, engagement levels, and the leads generated. It also contributed positively to brand lift. Building onto Season 1, the brand wanted to focus more on building quality leads and increasing conversions. The brand team dived deep into the sentiment analysis and found that to move the consumers to buyers of insurance, TG needed something more in terms of understanding how life insurance would benefit them.
The brand decided to move the story forward and supplement the communication through snippets that focused more on functional benefits, such as up to 20% tax rebate with life insurance, protecting the value of savings from inflation, and the affordability of the product with saving just Rs. 100 per day for a financially secure future. Also introduced was the character of the music sensation Asim Azhar, to create the necessary pull for first-time jobbers to save. Young, stylish and cool, Asim’s character resonated with the younger audiences and the first-time jobbers, pushing a message of how important, convenient and affordable life insurance is. The soul of the webisode further strengthened through the Humrahi soundtrack that not only unified the series, but also became an instant trend on all music platforms.
By Season 3, Covid had hit the globe and there was widespread economic malaise. EFU Life aimed to instill in the audience the need of a safety net, and the idea that when one can ensure a backup for the minutest things in life, e.g., a power bank for mobile phones, generator for load shedding, etc., then why not ensure a financial backup in one’s life. EFU Life introduced “life ka backup” to ensure the financial well-being of the ones that matter the most. In the webisode “Bachon ki Khushiyoun ka asli backup”, the impact of Covid resulting to businesses being shut down and schooling of children being affected is seen and how having a secure “backup” helps you cruise through such pressing times without disrupting the essential things in life, such as child’s education.
The Powerful Reach of Social Media Customization
The webisodes and the snippets were disseminated through a variety of social media platforms such as Facebook, Google Ads, Instagram, and YouTube. To gauge creative performance and optimization, Facebook pixels and Google conversion and remarketing tags were applied to track the leads and A/B testing was done on ad formats to check the effectiveness of different creatives and messaging. Shorter video formats were used to run the videos on Facebook instream and YouTube bumper along with non-skippable ads for a higher video completion rate.
The audience was targeted through their demographics, life events, interests, and behaviours in all conversion-based campaigns. Customer lists and audiences of converted users were set up to create lookalike audiences on Facebook and Google. UTM tracking codes were set up in all campaigns to track goals and website sessions more efficiently in Google Analytics, with multiple landing pages developed for each platform to streamline qualified leads. Audience segmentation, ongoing optimization, with a close eye on performance metrics, led to the campaign far exceeding the KPI’s.
Google Display Network (GDN) was utilized in the media planning, which allowed access to the limitless publishers and audiences it had. By using Google’s dynamic targeting, the ads were placed in programs and content which had the highest rating among their target audience, based on their interests and behaviours. To target the audience, Branded, Generic and Competitors keywords were used in Google search campaigns along with Google Display Ads targeted using the demographics, affinities, topics, custom intent, custom affinity, and remarketing on engagement of the audience visiting the website. PR was an important part of amplifying the campaign. In Season 3, the brand relaunched the Humrahi soundtrack with EFU Life new corporate identity, its new logo and asked its now extensive social media audience to submit renditions of the song so that the winner gets to sing along with Asim in a jam session. Again, the idea was not to generate leads as much as to generate “talkability” and “buzz”.
The Numbers Say It All
EFU Life uses an ROI based marketing strategy with emphasis on performance metrics, such as brand awareness, leads generated, and the cost per lead and engagement. The focus is on optimal allocation of the budget hence careful measurement of the results of its investments was vital. The recourse to digital marketing allowed it to take measurements at a very minute level instead of “talking in the air.” The brand team knew how many impressions had been obtained, how many clicks generated (and thus CTRs obtained), and how many end-to-end leads were filled from a particular ad or a particular campaign.
The first measure that EFU Life paid attention to was BLS or the Brand Lift Study, by Google. In BLS, Google shows an ad to one of the two randomized groups, but not to the second group, and measures the difference in brand recall. The YouTube BLS was conducted on the 1st webisode which resulted in a lift of 34.5% which was far above Pakistan’s benchmark of 19.5%. In terms of numbers, the total impressions served were over 280 million, with an increase in reach of 82%. Total video views crossed 33 million with an engagement from all three seasons of 1.4 million.
‘Humrahi’ had set new benchmarks for the industry and became a success story recognized both locally and internationally, winning Gold & Silver at EFFIE Pakistan for Season 1 & 2, Gold Globe Award at MAA Globes for Best Use of Media and winning Blue & Gold Dragon at Dragons of Asia for ‘Best Campaign of Pakistan’ across all categories and industries and ‘Best Use of Media’ across the APAC region. The biggest feat however was in changing perceptions and positioning Life insurance as a smart choice of savings among the young minds, which could be attributed to generating 65% sign ups from the primary audience. A pull had been created, the millennials were fast becoming considerers of life insurance and they would one day be the bullseye market and influencers of the category. The brand had set its sight on changing mindsets, building progressive thinking and encouraging a pre-emptive approach towards financial planning, laying the foundation for the brand's communication on both traditional and digital platforms. A new chapter of brand storytelling is set to be written.
Questions to stimulate conversation on the case
- Compare and contrast Traditional marketing with Digital marketing, in the light of the above case. Illustrate your arguments with examples.
- How was the Humrahi series able to break into a segment which was difficult to reach by the Life Insurance industry?
- How can EFU Life ensure a higher ROI in terms of conversions?
- If you were given the task to grow the category, what would be your course of action?
Links and media
Website: https://www.efulife.com/