Sanjay Tripathy is Executive Vice President, Marketing, Product and Direct Sales Channels, at HDFC Life. In this role, he is responsible for HDFC Life’s Direct Sales Channels, Marketing and Product Strategy, Brand Planning, Advertising, Communication and Media, Customer Insights, Online and Digital Strategy, Customer Analytics and Corporate communication. 

He is credited for establishing HDFC Life as a strong and distinct brand in the insurance category. In FY 12-13, he is working towards building greater visibility in the online space. There is special focus on ‘Women’ segment and customized life insurance solutions for diverse customer segments.

Sanjay has started his career with GCMMF Ltd. in 1992. Since then he has worked with various reputed organizations like Frito-Lay (PepsiCo), Mattel and Reliance Infocomm before moving on to his current role at HDFC Life in 2004. 

In an interaction with India Digital Review, Sanjay talks about how formidable is HDFC Life’s digital footprint, company’s digital spends and plans for 2013. 

How does the digital medium - both internet and mobile figure in HDFC’s Life plans to reach out to consumers?

Today, consumers are taking the digital route to complete their purchase cycle. Product research, consideration, information sharing, comparisons, evaluating features against cost effectiveness and the actual purchase itself – all or most of these steps today require the user to access the internet. Mobile screens are fast becoming the most, or in fact, the only screens through which users are accessing the internet.

Hence, the web and mobile devices are important spaces to tap into, if we want to reach out to our consumers. While HDFC Life’s presence on the internet is huge, to the extent that more than 30 percent of the media spends of the brand comprise digital media, we are just beginning to get active on mobile. We are in the process of developing mobile assets like our website and interactive applications, which we believe will connect the dots between HDFC Life on mobile and the consumer. These assets will also help us give more meaning to our media campaigns, the impact of which is directly proportional to branding exercises and business for HDFC Life.

Which according to you have been some of the most exciting online campaigns that the company has initiated for its brand so far?

Two campaigns that definitely stand out of the lot in terms of their digital media performance would be the ‘Click 2 Protect’ and ‘Smart Is You’ campaigns. While both these were integrated media campaigns, the fact that the digital medium played an important role in deciding their effectiveness and reach, makes them interesting case studies for us to share.

‘Click 2 Protect’ was in fact given then name to communicate the fact that buying insurance and protecting your family is just a click away – just like buying movie tickets, travel bookings, shopping, etc. The core creative thought lend itself seamlessly into the various creative renditions that we used for advertising online and saw some great results in terms of brand recall as well as business for the product.

‘Smart Is You’ as a campaign allowed us to explore the realm of engagement with female online users, a niche category to target for an insurance product. HDFC Life created a digital journey for women across touch points – from Facebook and display media to a dedicated microsite to the online buying platform, making it a self sustained digital campaign. ‘Smart Is You’ also helped us utilize user generated content from our experiential marketing campaign and seed it on to social media for enhanced engagement.

In the BFSI sector, performance based digital advertising works best. With the advent of new forms of content such as video and apps, what are your plans around this?

We feel that content is the key factor that contributes to success of any kind of advertising, be it online or offline. In the digital ecosystem, no media initiative can be termed successful unless it engages the user effectively. And to make this possible, videos as well as applications come in handy.

As far as videos are concerned, we plan to leverage the fact that YouTube has grown to become the largest platform for users to upload and consume video content. HDFC Life has been planning to create content that helps users in the areas of financial planning, customer service and product knowledge for a while, and you should be able to see a lot of these being populated on our digital assets in the next few months.

Applications on Facebook have been a part of our engagement efforts on social media for various campaigns and we will continue to have these in future too. The next step is to see how branded mobile applications can be built to engage with users on these devices, an opportunity that we are evaluating and exploring.

You have earlier mentioned that company is currently spending 30 per cent of marketing budget on digital. Do you see this number increasing in future?

Yes, over the last few months, we have considerably increased the percentage of budget that we pump in on digital media while creating the media mix. Digital is now an important and inevitable facet to all our Integrated Marketing campaigns and it will continue to be so in future. With HDFC Life focusing on e-commerce and mobile in a big way during the next financial year, the proportion of budget being spent in the space will increase further.

What answers do you seek from your digital advertising agencies and digital media partners while promoting your brand on internet?

HDFC Life adheres to its brand philosophy and communication line “Sar Utha Ke Jiyo” in all media campaigns undertaken. Maintaining the same brand language and imagery in our digital media promotions is of utmost importance to reflect the same values online.

Digital media owning to its dynamic nature tends to deviate from mainline communication at times. While we understand that this flexibility is required to an extent for the campaigns to be effective, we still believe that digital should work in tandem and under the same umbrella which covers all our media communication.

That apart, the ROI value that digital contributes to the brand and  the impact that it has on visibility, reach and recall are important parameters to measure, while  executing and analyzing a media campaign online.

What innovations would you as a brand want from online publishers in the country?

Media innovations today are sold only as impact properties and are impression based buys. While these are good to have and come in handy while we create new categories and products, the end result of any media activity is to lend support to business and show effective ROI. Hence, measurability of performance both in terms of brand impact and ROI should be made possible for brands to understand the true value of their investments in such media units. 

HDFC Life has engaged users on social media with your Facebook page having 1.1 mn fan base and more than 1600 fans on twitter. Have you seen any transactions happening through social media or is it just an information dissemination platform? What scope do you see in the social media space?

We primarily look at Facebook as a medium of engagement with our fans. We primarily look at Facebook as a medium of engagement with our fans. While Twitter serves as an ideal platform for sharing knowledge and thoughts and can also be looked as one of the tools for providing impeccable customer service going forward. Over the past one year, our social media presence has grown manifold, to position us as the leader in the Indian Life Insurance industry.

We’ve now reached a stage where HDFC Life enjoys having the largest social media communities and the highest engagement rates for conversations on these platforms. Having achieved these primary goals on social media, the next step would be to build these as effective funnels to add numbers to our business conversions. We do see users getting on to our online buying portal from social media. We’re making consistent efforts to measure and analyze the impact of social media in adding direct value to our business to see where it leads us in future. However, the primary role of social media we believe is to serve as a medium engagement and not hard selling of products, at least in the insurance space.

People are speaking about mobile being a great medium for brand communication, but still, the spends on the medium is minimal. What is your take on this?

Mobile media is certainly coming of age in India, with the exponential growth in number of users flocking to the medium unlike any other. Mobile page views in India have already surpassed web page views and  our new generation is increasingly having its first internet experience on hand held devices, rather than desktops and laptops. Mobile phones have definitely become the most viewed screen during the day span of a regular internet user, and it is important for brands to be present where the consumer is. 

The constant up-gradation in technology, introduction of smart phones, new age hand held devices like iPads and tablets, 3G/4G internet connectivity, interactive applications and games have made the mobile media space more dynamic and extensive a canvass than we ever imagined it to be.

I believe that marketers are just about getting to understand the power of this medium. We will have to reach out to consumers on this medium, and media spends will have to increase for us to be able to do that.

We couldn't find HDFC Life’s app; is the company planning to launch one? Do you think a chunk of your sales will come from M-Commerce in future?

HDFC Life’s mobile website and corporate mobile apps are certainly in the pipeline. While mobile commerce is already playing a big role for BFSI players, especially private sector banks, we are evaluating if this would have a direct impact on our business. Purchase of an insurance product on mobile will have its own hurdles, owning to the fact that it is impossible to capture complete user data on a smaller screen, without which a transaction cannot be complete. However, mobile has been one of the most effective modes of lead capture for us, and we will continue to drive it to serve this purpose in future.

In the context of BFSI, both online and offline transactions take place. But there is a perception that people research and compare products online and buy them offline. What do you think of this perception? Is it likely to change anytime soon?

It is general user behavior to read about a product online, before going ahead and making a purchase. User reviews, product information published online, features, price points and other information readily available on the internet effect the purchase decision of a consumer immensely.

However, in the past few years, we have seen a shift in product purchases happening at stores to e-shopping. While the path has been smoother for categories like travel and tourism, fashion, appliances, gadgets and the likes, the journey for insurance has been rather different. But we do see trends changing and consumers embracing digital as the medium for purchasing financial products too.

How many policies or insurance plans are you selling online?

Traditional mediums of selling policies contribute to a mammoth part of the overall business for our company. The share through digital media, which includes efforts from our digital direct marketing and ecommerce teams, is currently miniscule. However, we see a huge potential for this in the times to come. The contribution of Protection plans to our overall sales has more than doubled since the launch of click2protect, our first online term plan. This affirms our planned strategy on the successful combination of product features, online experience both pre and post sales to become the leader in online sales within a short time frame despite competition having quite a good head-start.

HDFC Life is also planning to go totally online wherein users can buy policies and other services without physically going to the bank. Tell us more about this. When is the expected launch date?

While we are most definitely planning to ramp up activity and hence business from the digital medium, products will still continue to be sold through traditional channels points-of-sale. While the Indian consumer is becoming comfortable with the idea of buying insurance products online, we still have a long way to go before a complete shift happens from buying products physically to relying on the virtual world to do this.

How do you see your marketing objectives aligning with what the online medium offers two years down the line?

One of core brand values that we believe in is ‘Customer Centricity’. All traditional media vehicles so far have been a one way mode of communication for brands, where ‘listening’ isn’t really possible. Within the traditional scheme of things, digital media comes in as a refreshing change, helping marketers address this concern. Digital platforms enable a two way communication, allow us to connect with the consumers directly, are more responsive and transparent. Consumers are increasingly relying on the medium to connect with the brands they adore.

Apart from that there is the business perspective to this, which has immense potential to grow. All in all, digital is the way ahead for brands in the future if they wish to prosper, and HDFC Life is definitely one of them.