"In a push category like insurance, only BTL can lead to differentiation": Anika Agarwal, Max Bupa

As standalone health insurance player Max Bupa Health Insurance gears up for the third edition of Walk For Health, its annual brand property, we bring you an interview with Anika Agarwal, marketing head, Max Bupa Health Insurance.

The BTL event, in which the brand literally gets people to congregate and well, walk, will take place this Sunday (November 9) in Mumbai and Delhi. Prior to joining Max Bupa around three years back, Agarwal was marketing activation manager at Nokia, during which time she worked on Middle East and Africa markets.

When Max Bupa Health Insurance entered the market five years back, it was the 22nd player to do so. Today, it competes with 26 brands, is ranked No.7 in the B2C private health insurance sector (which includes standalone as well as consolidated players) and is one of the top three media spenders in its space.

Agarwal approaches health insurance as a "sunrise sector", the market penetration of which is as low as five to six per cent in India. In such a scenario, the role of activation becomes paramount, we gather, through the course of an hour-long chat with Agarwal.

Edited Excerpts.

Edited Excerpts

Insurance is still mistrusted. So a large part of brand building is about building trust. One has to grow the category and, at the same time, build trust for the category. Look at the marketing spends in the health insurance category - we don't have large brand building budgets like FMCG or telecom players do. So if we have to sell health insurance, we must sell it as not just as an insurance commodity, but as a product that really takes care of your health.

A lot of brands take up the 'eating space' by saying, 'I want to give your family healthy food' but we did not want to look at food because we are talking primarily to male audiences. We want to give them some form of exercise that is easily 'accessible' to all age groups and can be enjoyed by the family as well.

In the first year we got about 18,000 participants in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The next year we chose Delhi and Mumbai, because we wanted to focus on metros that have the most sedentary lifestyle, where work pressure is high and where people don't get time to exercise; we got 20,000 walkers that year.

Our research around walking patterns shows that over 50 per cent of the people in Delhi and Mumbai like to walk with their families.

The profile of the participants has evolved, yes, but there hasn't been a drastic change. One change is - we now see more groups coming in. Primarily, our participants belong to SEC A and B. I don't see that changing because we anyway cater to those audiences. While our male-female ratio is almost equal, we have seen an increase in participation from children and senior citizens over the years.

This year, we have also spoken to a lot of schools and expect close to 5,000 children to join the walk.

A lot of older players in the segment talk to B2B customers, like corporate groups. Our strategy is to focus only on the B2C segment. We talk to large families and shape our products in that manner; for example, our product Family First covers 14 relationships under one policy.

Our data shows that typically it is the chief wage earner who buys the policy. This bread winner is male and is around 35 years of age. But we don't want insure only the chief bread winner. We want to insure the whole family. Over 70 per cent of our products are family policies.

Right now, around 20 per cent of our marketing budget goes into BTL activities.

We have four bank partners. 'Banker's assurance' is a big thing in this industry. Two of our bank partners, Ratnakar Bank and Federal Bank are operating half of their business outside metros. Through them we penetrate tier two and tier three cities. With these partners we do a lot of micro-marketing. A lot of educative conversations take place with customers at these banks. The other two banks we have partnered with are Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.

During our first two years in the market, we used a lot of TV - probably 60 per cent of the marketing budget. Around 20-30 per cent was spent on radio and print. A very small amount was kept for digital and BTL. But now that awareness around the brand has shot up, we are slowly reducing our dependence on these mediums (TV, print) and building conversations through BTL and digital. For instance, we are doing a Google Hangout activity with fitness expert Mickey Mehta who will speak about how health affects your mind, body and soul.

In a push category like health insurance, brand differentiation can only happen through BTL. Also, this category is very dependent on partners. A large part of our sales - around 60 per cent - is done by our agents, who go and talk to their customers. A big BTL drive for us is our annual health check-ups. Even before the Walk for Health, we built it up by going to parks and asking people to register and get health checkups done; they are a 'natural TG'.

We spend around 8-10 per cent of our marketing spends on research.

The customer needs to be educated, yes, but the inclination to buy health insurance is probably just as much as it is in metros. The challenge in semi-urban and rural areas is more in terms of 'What is the right product to buy?' because the buyer will probably be a bit more price-sensitive.

The other challenge we face in these areas is that of a highly fragmented hospital network. We have a telesales department through which we sell insurance policies over the phone, in more than 60 cities. So, while there is mistrust, there exist people who buy their policies over the phone.

Most youngsters are insured through their corporate policies.

Many of them go to the gym, try and eat healthy food... the mindset is - 'I am healthy, I am invincible'. But we also see a lot of youngsters who, having faced an unfortunate incident in their families, have a completely different mindset. We try and communicate with this group of youngsters.

We also do a lot of lifestyle-based marketing. Newly married people or those looking to start a family are 'sweet spots' for us.

Health insurance is like an annual contract, unlike government-based life insurance plans (say, LIC) which are renewable once every 10-15 years. With health insurance I have to be relevant year on year.

Since it is an annual contract, if in two-three years you do not claim, as a customer, you may feel your money is being wasted. In the health insurance segment, a lot of customers are 'trapped customers'. For an insurance brand, converting a trapped customer to a loyal customer entails a very difficult journey.

Earlier, insurance ads were about scaring people into buying policies. When we launched, most brands were saying, 'You will lose your peace of mind if you don't have insurance'. That appealed to a very 'LIC-ish' mindset, where the widow has to take care of her daughter's wedding. All brands were taking that route. Now, focus has shifted to the concept of taking responsibility and being prepared. We don't want customers to buy policies out of fear. We want it to be an educated decision.