“Print advertising still captures enough attention”: Acko’s Ashish Mishra on the brand’s paper ad for its paperless insurance

True horror is not something that comes from beneath our beds or from the shadows, it is that unexpected force that robs our health or wealth; if it is the latter, we will anyway lose the former.

One could say one of the celestial weapons against the evil of ill health or death is, of all things, an insurance policy. However, we often shirk away from using these weapons out of the fear of getting lost in the mass of paperwork that lies before it.

Acko General Insurance, a relatively new deity who forges such weapons, has done away with this tedious paperwork. Ogilvy South India, its messenger, has used this fear of paperwork to spread this message — a print ad showing a heap of files resembling a scary monster. But the words ‘Paperwork is Scary’ in tiny font at the bottom brings hope — Acko Insurance is paperless.

To be honest, the irony is not lost on the brand. The brand has intentionally chosen the print medium for its message on paperwork for its strong reach.

“Print advertising still captures enough attention as we have seen with our past campaigns,” says Ashish Mishra, executive vice president, Acko.

Mahesh Gharat, chief creative officer, Ogilvy India (South), says they have deliberately chosen the medium to drive home the irony. “Print media is still strong in our country. After the pandemic everything is digitised and all the advertisers are going towards digital and electronic media, but the print medium still holds strong roots. We thought that this is the best vehicle to talk about the paperwork. People say that the print medium is dead in these digital times. But I believe we should take advantage of every medium. And in India whatever happens print will not die,” he said.

Insurance companies in India are known for the truckloads of paperwork they make their customers fill for submission for their records. The hassle of obtaining a claim becomes a huge hindrance because of this. As a result, paperwork becomes an enormous and real pain-point for insurance holders.

“Insurance category cues loads of paperwork. This can be daunting and scary for many consumers to the point that many would just like to avoid it altogether. That's the core insight of the campaign. At ACKO, we pride ourselves in offering ‘Zero paperwork insurance’ and we wanted to bring this out in the most creative and impactful way possible. The ‘hidden monsters’ in the creative ad, deliver just that and drive home the brand promise in an effective manner,” adds Mishra.

Acko exaggerates this pain-point in the ad to drive the point. The ad is set in a typical brick and mortar office in India- in a decrepit state, with piles of files and folders. Through this, it represents how horrifying the paperwork with other insurance companies is as opposed to Acko’s paperless process.

Gharat said, “With Acko, there is zero paperwork. Our creative idea and execution was born out of this simple product insight. We wanted to dramatize the pain point and highlight the horrifying experience one has to go through while dealing with traditional insurance companies. To see the campaign come alive on print was truly gratifying. Acko believed in the idea, and to see brands like Acko investing in the craft and not just the message, is great to see.”

Through the campaign, it aims to communicate to the digital-savvy youth the advantage of using its paperless services over traditional insurance providers.

The ad is a good example of the old saying ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’. The image does all the talking and there are only three words in the copy ‘Paperwork is scary’. Once the heap of files catches the audience’s attention there is nothing to distract from it — not even the brand’s logo which is subtly placed at the bottom of the ad.

Though the images look real and alive, they have been completely created through illustrations and 3D by Twinbrains, a Delhi-based CGI Studio.

“The image had to look organic and we had to create this imagery. So we did a little research on government offices and how the files are kept. Then we created this through 3D illustrations on a computer,” said Gharat.

It took them at least four to five months to create these three images as the second wave of the pandemic wreaked havoc in their schedule. They began work on the campaign in June, but some of the people working on it tested positive for Coronavirus and finally it was completed in October. The ads have been released in Business World Magazine so far and will soon release in other business dailies.

“Everything in these images has been created. So we had to get into the details of everything including the texture, lighting, etc. That took us some time and then there was some gap when the technicians had COVID,” he added.

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