What Ashish Tiwari teaches about privacy-first marketing

As a marketing guy, I think that digital will certainly rule the roost for being that you would be able to speak to a customer in his zone, in his movement. Hi Ashish and welcome to Brandmasters. So tell us more about the modern insurance buyer. How does she engage with the brand and how can brands, the insurance brand look forward to creating more meaningful conversations with this new insurance buyer? I think, see when you look at the consumer of insurance, what has changed over a period of time is the information the consumer is empowered with.

Some years back, if you look at, go back a couple of decades back, the only channel of information was limited to either person or probably couple of organizations what they print out or what they kind of release. Today, with the advent of digital and the ubiquitousness of the platforms, and as I say, everybody is a media channel today. There are 500 different 500 million media channels which are in the country. Okay. And people are producing content. They are talking good or bad is a different question altogether.

Depends on which side of the bed you are waking up from. Okay. So, in that kind of a sense, what buyer has started doing and buyer is spoiled for choices, for getting to understand, getting to understand the product, getting to understand the service, and the entire life cycle is being made transparent for a buyer. Okay. And in that sense, the only change which I foresee is that insurance, which used to be a very passive buy, the consumer is engaging more and more with the brands. The consumer is trying to be active in the overall purchase cycle.

And this is one of the products where over the lifespan of product, you have choices to make, whether to continue or not. Depending on what is your premium cycle, you can make monthly, quarterly or annual choices. And hence, it is also important for brand to keep engaging with the consumer and keep his trust alive that what he made a choice, he or she made a choice is right. And in that sense, I think it is overall a two-way journey, whereas you need to choose right

set of platforms to go back to consumer and keeping his or her faith alive in what the choices were made and being a long-term contract. It's at the end of the day longitudinal for life. It's like it could be 20 years, 30 years long contract. It's that longer commitment, which you have to keep alive for a consumer. So those are kind of a changes. Also, how are insurance brands driving home the importance of life insurance since it's a difficult conversation to make per se? I think there are a couple of things which are changing in the environment.

Number one is people are getting more and more aware. So it's about how well you use the awareness to bring about the changing society at the forefront. Today, the kind of a society we live in, the VUCA society or volatile, uncertain and ever-changing society you live in. As a consumer, each one of us realize the risks which are being carried, we are carrying at our back. The responsibilities are growing. And that's where insurance kicks in. As a brand, insurance brands are also doing a lot of things.

The amount of content creation which is happening, the amount of education which is happening both at the consumer end as well as at the brand end. This is leading to a better awareness. So I think that is helping overall as an industry to solidify its instance. Right. Also, insurance brands are sitting on a treasure trove of data per se, but not every brand has been able to monetize it. Do you agree, disagree? What is your take on it? I would say that yes, there is a huge amount of data. But I am unsure if I would agree that not every brand is using it.

I won't use term monetize. I would say that using it to personalize the experience and I think going forward the brand which and it's a ever changing world. It's a evolving world. Technology is not something which is like which has come in past 200 years or 20 years insurance has existed for much longer than that. Technology has just started intervening now. We are at that cusp now that you see all this changing behaviors. And I think the brand which will start using more and more, it's a race where you need to kind of run faster and run better.

Make your choices right. And the brand which will use are the one who will win the consumer trust, who will be able to aid consumer decision making and keep him on his journey. And that's how earn trust and that's how succeed in the market. Right. Talking of trust again, one of probably the biggest hindrances for the insurance brands per se. So apart from I mean obviously using the data as you said correctly to build trust, what are other ways you think you can tackle the issue of trust building per se?

I think insurance is in a very simplest form is the what if of any plan. You have planned everything, if everything goes the way it has been planned, then it does. What if it doesn't? Right. And in that what if trust becomes the biggest decision factor for any consumer to be with you or not to. And in that sense, I think we need to as insurance brands what they are doing and as a marketer what I see in practitioner of this marketing, I see data usage certainly helps you personalize both your communication as well as your services.

You need to stand true to what your commitment is. And that's the delivery of commitment and then display of the delivery becomes very important. Where technology just comes to an aid. And third and biggest thing is use your or help your customer. I won't say use, I would say help and enable your customer carry forward the message of the trust or display of trust which you have done with them and talk about it to rest of his peer set.

And I think if any brand is able to do that and the better you are able to do that, the sooner you are able to do that, the better position you will be to win the market and win the consumer. Right. And finally moving into the future, how does the marketing mix look like for you this year per se? I think this year or in years to come by, as a marketing guy, I think that digital will certainly rule the roost for being that you would be able to speak to a customer in his own, in his movement.

However, offline mediums, all the touch point mediums will come to your aid when it becomes the aided conversations. Insurance as a product is not fully digitally understood. It is still remains a product where you need a human touch and that becomes very important. And you need to consider that human touch in the medium mix.