HDFC Standard marches to different beat with music album

Sumedha Srivastav - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai
HDFC Standard Life, the private sector life insurer, has launched a music album themed on self-respect, adopting an unconventional yet unobtrusive method to promote its 'Sar Utha Ke Jiyo' tagline.

Unlike television commercials, the songs popularising the brand tagline are positioned as music videos on entertainment channels and as songs on radio stations. The 'Sar Utha Ke Jiyo' album, marketed by Percept India's Integrated P9, will be sold in music stores across the country.

While the video for the title song or its lyrics will not contain any branded content, two songs composed by Shantanu Moitra and Madhuparna will be in keeping with the brand idea of buying insurance to retain self-respect. The music album has a total of six songs, including four which are compilations of Hindi film hits.

The video has been directed by Shiraz Bhattacharya, who has also directed music videos for Shubha Mudgal and for the popular album, Piya Basanti. It has been shot in various parts of India, including Ladakh, Goa and Kerala, in over 15 days.

"The overall objective was to take the brand into a newer segment. We wanted to use a non-intrusive and engaging means of touching base with our target group by creating a positive disposition about the brand even if they choose to buy it only later," said Sanjay Tripathy, executive vice-president and marketing head, HDFC Standard Life.

Over three years, the communication by HDFC Standard Life has been consistently centred around this theme. The company says it hopes to use this high recall value to its advantage as it seeks to popularise insurance with the youth who generally avoid this subject, Tripathy observed.

This is not the first time that a corporate brand has released a music album. In the past, Brooke Bond had released a music album, 'Taaza ho le' with Sunidhi Chauhan. Also, Head and Shoulders had done a music video with their brand ambassador, Kareena Kapoor.