Bajaj Allianz General Insurance promotes ‘care’ in all aspects of life and business, and has a brand promise of "Caringly Yours" (where it understands the problems that people go through and offers solutions). Health insurance is the biggest seller for the brand and health was a top consideration for the audience too, but the conversation around health had shifted in a big way towards negativity because of the pandemic.
Need Of The Hour: As a brand that promotes the power of care, how can Bajaj Allianz create or engage with people during the lockdown and at early stage of the pandemic?
Our objective was to help people feel connected in a positive manner. We had to engage and connect with the audience in a way that stays true to the brand while being empathetic to the global pandemic scenario.
All conversations around the pandemic were filled with despair and negativity (death toll, lockdown anxiety, vaccine uncertainty). We hence, chose to strategically use the phenomenon of kindness contagion that says watching kindness inspires acts of kindness (promoted by United Nations for global support generation in pandemic communication).
The need to feel connected is very strong in times of crisis, which makes people seek comfort in ways they wouldn't otherwise. The pandemic disconnected and also connected us in unique ways, hence, while we physically were at our furthest, virtually we were at our closest. We had to find a beacon of hope for the underdogs i.e. the human race suffering through the pandemic.
Throughout history, the song ‘We Shall Overcome’ has been used in landmark events to signal the emergence of hope and freedom from injustice (When President Obama and other dignitaries went to Selma, Alabama, in March 2015 to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, he, too, cited the song.) The pandemic is the biggest landmark unjust event in this decade for all, and hence this song became the apt anthem to be revived for a global message of hope and kindness.
Given that the pandemic is a global issue, we chose to make a globally resonant online campaign that brings people from across the world together.
Our approach: An anthem video (Care will Overcome) was made by recreating ‘We shall overcome’ by an international team of vocalists and musicians using vocals in 7 international languages, each representing a country from the list of ‘most affected’ (no. of cases) by the pandemic at the time of making the campaign (April 2020). The countries were Italy, Iran, India, China, United States, Germany, Spain. Each vocalist contributed one paragraph to the anthem.
Visuals featured in the video were real on-ground images (sourced from Reuters) from each of the featured countries showing people facing the pandemic with acts of kindness that inspire.
Vocals:
Released on World Health Day, 7th April - The video went live on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter simultaneously and was promoted to frontline workers and medical professionals globally. As part of the extension to show hope, we created a virtual human chain on Instagram where people could participate and show their support for Care Will Overcome.
