#DhoniKaSaath takes a new approach on celebrity-brand relationship

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Aishwaria Sonavane
New Update
Exide Life Insurance
Brand ambassadors have established to become the not-so-secret weapon of companies by embodying the brand’s identity with demeanor, value, and visibility. To surface this bond between brand and ambassador, Exide Life Insurance planted a campaign to introduce budding relationships.

Lamba Saath, bharose ki baat

Exide Life Insurance, staying close to its ideology of building trust through long term relationships builds a campaign, subtly hinting towards the benefits of Life Insurance, moreover, introducing Mahindra Singh Dhoni as the face of their brand.

On June 21st the brand took their campaign ahead through their official digital handles, beginning with a GIF and a minute long video comprehensibly told a story by narrating a few relatable episodes.

The first scene of the video showcases Mahendra Singh Dhoni interacting with a long-time, considerate neighbor who cooks meals for him in the absence of his wife. The next scene projects Dhoni’s familiar, comfortable relationship with the family doctor.

Eventually, the message picked up from two incidences, Dhoni relates it to Exide Life Insurance policy of long-term bonds, making a statement, ‘Life ke lambe journey mein, lambe rishtey hi toh kaam ate hai’ (In the long journey of life, it is the long-term relationship that benefits)

The campaign speaks directly, yet politely to the audience maintaining the straightforward language of communication in Hindi so as to reach multiple strata of the society, attracting more customers.

Prequel of the video

The new step of collaboration between Exide Life Insurance and Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the ideal purpose of this campaign. Ambassadors humanize their brands by putting a voice to it and usually it’s the brand that introduces their ambassador but this time, it was the other way round.

Constructing their campaign on speculations a day before releasing the video, #DhoniKaSaath was trending on Twitter as twitteratis went on a guessing spree. The brand built up the excitement by putting Dhoni under spotlight, leveraging on his popularity.

Through their Facebook page, the brand promoted on a big reveal by throwing multiple hints at their audience urging them to guest this personality.

In this case, the brand played smart to grab digital world's attention, as netizens were all ears when Dhoni had to say something. This might not have happened if the brand announced the campaign, as it lacks in popularity in comparison to the famous cricketer. #DhoniKaSaath funneled the attention of the viewers, keeping them all geared up for the big news thus elevating awareness towards the brand.

Campaign competition

The neck to neck competitive brand HDFC Life Insurance already has established its association with cricket in the past by producing campaigns involving cricket-faces. During the on-going IPL fad the brand came up with #MemoriesForLife, a campaign where cricketers R Ashwin & Kevin Pietersen recorded a warm video for their children. They also associated with Pune Rising Super Giants; back in 2012 the brand collaborated with Rajasthan Royals for their campaign.

Another campaign, #MyTeamMyPride during the T20 World Cup became an evidence of the brand’s fondness for cricket where they built contests to win hearts of cricket-fanatics on social media. This campaign was flourished impressively by the brand without the backing of any star face gaining enough attention.

Now competition brand, Exide Life Insurance has stepped into a new relationship with the star of the cricket world taking the similar path as that of HDFC.

A sportsman having a massive mass appeal and a fellowship - the brand believes that this cricket star personifies Exide Life Insurance as it possesses qualities like stability, dynamism, dependability, and responsiveness.

Social media buzz

#DhoniKaSaath took over Twitter by storm with people tweeting their speculations dedicatedly and showing keen interest. The video release also witnessed massive traction with 448k k views, 4.3k positive reactions and also received 311 shares all within two days.

The brand dedicated their entire Facebook page to their campaign by sharing the video multiple times; even the new brand ambassador posted the video on his personal handle.

Overall, a brilliantly constructed campaign bringing in a new approach to creating buzz around the brand ambassador, the brand held a strong grip on social media.

Exide Life insurance HDFC Life Insurance Dhoni #DhoniKaSaath BSFI campaigns BSFI digital campaigns Dhoni digital campaigns Mahinder Singh Dhoni Mahinder Singh Dhoni campaign