HDFC Life’s New Annuity Campaign Makes Retirement Planning Look Attractive

In a recent annuity campaign, HDFC Life has built an inspiring narrative that challenges the audience’s mindset around retirement. The ad conveys that human potential is beyond one’s retirement years thereby inspiring individuals to choose a retirement product that enables fulfillment of dreams. It is centered on HDFC Life’s annuity product ‘Pension Guaranteed Plan’ that is designed to provide guaranteed monthly income which not only secures an individual’s retirement but also enables one to fulfill the dreams of their youth which got abandoned once responsibilities took over.

A simple question to potential retirees, “Aap bade hoke kya banna chahte ho?”, sets the tone for the ad. HDFC Life is positioned as a facilitator offering a solution to realise long cherished dreams without having to worry about the risk of running out of money.

Leveraging the expertise of leading advertising partner Wieden & Kennedy, they have created a short film showing five retirees young at heart, supremely excited to pursue their dreams thanks to HDFC Life Pension Guaranteed Plan. In the quest to impact culture, a social campaign has been created and thought leaders have been on-boarded to drive credibility, scale and the reach of the message.

Seeing how complicated financial websites usually are, a special micro site has been created. This micro site simplifies the concept of annuity by bringing characters of the film to life in an interactive comic strip format, designed by the famous cartoonist Sailesh Gopalan, founder of Brown Paperbag Comics.

That’s not all, as part of this campaign HDFC Life will also conduct a Masterclass on Retirement Planning in association with leading financial experts. The micro site serves as a platform through which individuals can register for this Masterclass.

Speaking on the launch Vishal Subharwal, EVP – E-commerce & Digital Marketing said, “Retirement planning is a critical part of every financial plan. Most individuals ignore this activity. This is also because of the fact that retirement seems boring and individuals don’t look forward to it like other phases of their lives. Through this campaign, we want to break the stereotype and make retirement planning aspirational & enable Indian consumers manage longevity risk.

In line with our customer centric approach, we want to simplify the understanding of annuity as a concept, changing the audience sentiment around retirement and bringing in a behavioral change and advocating financial readiness for retirement so they can pursue their passion or live their dreams through our retirement solutions.

We have developed helpful tools and content related to the retirement category so our audiences feel empowered and confident to kick-start the second innings of their life. The campaign communication will be amplified via our digital and social media platforms.”

Dean Wei, Executive Creative Director, W+K added, “Thinking about our futures, and how to achieve our goals after retirement isn’t just a boring financial exercise, based on a rational decision. It’s about dreams and plans, big and small. We wanted to take a different tack than most financial communications and give people an emotional reason as to why they should make a smart decision earlier rather than later. And since it’s about dreams, sometimes lifelong dreams, we wanted to make the work fun and not intimidating, but mostly not cheesy and patronizing. We wanted to show retirees in a true light - they have so much to give and live for; they want to have fun and fulfill their dreams after decades of worrying about others. You’ll see this in the advertising but even more clearly in the website, which takes complicated options and features and makes them easy to understand and maybe even a little fun to think about.”