India: Tata-AIG takes brand battle to newcomers

MUMBAI: Tata AIG life insurance is refreshing its branding amid growing category clutter with the entry of private players into the market.

The Tata and American International Group joint-venture is running with a new platform, 'A new look at life', which marks changes to its logo and as well as the product line.

Ian Watts, managing director, Tata AIG, said: "Our product suite will be designed taking into consideration our consumers' present and future insurable and savings needs.

"The opening-up of the upper and lower boundaries of our logo endorses our commitment that we will go beyond the usual boundaries to find solutions and design products hitherto unavailable in India. Going forward, 'anticipation' and 'innovation' will be integral parts of our corporate philosophy and ethos."

The new tagline will be used in conjunction with Tata AIG's current line 'With you always'. Watts added: "Even as Tata AIG is striking at a new vision, it will remain 'With you always'."

He described the new tagline as the next logical step to endorsing the fact that the company is "walking the talk".

The new position will be communicated through a multimedia campaign, the first leg of which features TV commercials, created by Bates. Said Rajeev Raja, executive creative director, Bates: "It's in keeping with the new position that Tata AIG wanted to occupy - essentially centred around innovation and anticipating needs, which was expressed in the tagline."

Raja said the change and the new tagline sought to underline the company's credentials in a stronger manner "It represents the insurance brand and captures how the company itself will look at life and insurance at one level, and on the flipside, represents how the consumer takes a new look as a result of its innovative solutions."

Insurance is one of the more cluttered categories in India following the entry of private players into the market - and a lot of the advertising and communication has predictably enough tugged at the heartstrings.

Tata-AIG's advertising was directly in response to the work created by the competition. The team was driven by looking at the category in a more endearing tongue-in-cheek way of putting the proposition forward as opposed to the usual "warm fuzzy emotion-laden approaches", said Raja.

"In the category itself, we wanted to demonstrate that we will express our brand message in a new way."

The first of these is a commercial called 'The tree of life', about a child thinking several years in advance in order to meet the love of his life - right over her disapproving father's head and another about parents who train their kid to be a basketball star by placing everything around him at a height.

A press campaign is in the works and will run in specialised business magazines, as well as an outdoor drive.

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