
Source: Economic Times 28th March 2012 Page 13
Source: Economic Times 28th March 2012 Page 13
It is said that celebrities influence minds of the young who are at an impressionable age. They follow their path blindly. Right or wrong is just a perception for these guys who get swayed by the on-screen charisma of the actors. Not only the young but even mature people get swayed intentionally or subconsciously when the message is woven in an emotional scene.
A case in point is the scene between hunk Hrithik Roshan and sultry Katrina Kaif. He is like the many next door boys for whom money is the priority over family and she is a person who pursues passions. When she says that “stop planning for your retirement and live life for the present”, it unintentionally hit the raw nerve of investment companies who say that they plan for the future including the pension funds, mutual funds and insurance companies.
The thought of living for the present as much as it sounds perfect is difficult to follow in this imperfect world. As life expectancy increases and science advances, cost of medicine too is going up. Without proper planning of finances and health insurance, it is very difficult to survive the medicine expenses. The cost further increases for critical diseases and lifestyle diseases such as blood pressure, diabetes among others. Thus people in the developing world need to plan for the future at the cost of being stingy in the short term.
Moreover the developing world doesn’t have the type of social security that the European countries and US have. Thus you see the high savings in China and India whereas consumption remains debt-fueled in Europe and the US. Anyway getting back to Zindagi Mile Na Dobara, I hope people take it just as a film and not derive unintended messages from him.
The latest victim of Repositioning seems to be Bajaj Allianz life Insurance. They have changed their tagline from “Jaise Jarurat waise insurance” to “Jiyo Befikar”. The original tagline mentioned about ‘customised offering’ by Bajaj Allianz. The new positioning mentions about the trust factor which has an emotional appeal.
Trust factor is the most important criteria in Insurance products. The problem though with this new positioning is that the other companies have already made this appeal in their positioning. ICICI Prudential’s tagline ‘Jeetey Raho’; SBI Life’s tagline ‘With Us, you’re sure’; Birla Sun Life’s tagline ‘muskurate raho’ and HDFC Standard Life’s tagline ‘Sar Utha Ke Jiyo’, all mention about the trust factor with an Emotional appeal.
This is where Bajaj Allianz has made a mistake. It was the only company which focused on the product with a practical appeal. It differentiated itself explicitly from the other companies. By doing this new positioning with an emotional appeal, it has lost out on the differentiation.