ICICI Prudential life is the No.1 player among the Indian private insurance companies. The ICICI Prudential brand name has the highest recall among all private companies. "The task for the ICICI Prudential is to build a relevant brand that customers could trust" says, Shikha Sharma, MD and CEO of ICICI Prudential Life. Read on to know more about her brand building strategy.
When the insurance industry was first opened up and private players entered the field in 2000, there was a host of challenges that lay before them. Consumer attitudes towards insurance were largely indifferent, and insurance was regarded as an inflexible, tax-saving product that offered low returns. Rarely was it recognized for its multi-dimensional protection instrument. Service levels were low and products were not transparent and typically sold as the "one-size-fits-all" kind, with very little relevance to a consumer's actual need. The most broad-based challenge for all companies was to spread awareness about life insurance—how it works, its benefits, and most of all, its absolute necessity for anyone who has dependents. At a more company-specific level, the task for ICICI Prudential (ICICI Pudential Life Insurance Company) was to build a relevant brand that customers could trust.
Being a front-runner in the life insurance industry, ICICI Prudential has always performed both the category task as well as the brand task with the help of advertising and PR. The company's initial campaigns addressed various myths and misconceptions about life insurance, seeking to change customer attitudes. For instance, life insurance had long been regarded as expensive, rigid, difficult to understand and good only for tax saving. As a result of ICICI Prudential's advertising, life insurance is now increasingly seen as a complete solution to meet one's myriad needs—health, wealth, life, child protection and retirement. It's a financial product that provides a stable return on investment, protects life at affordable cost, secures a child's future, does retirement planning in the most effective way and provides additional health protection. It is now becoming an integral part of the consumer's wealth management basket.
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