Why SBI Life chose to onboard brand ambassadors after 25 years

In India, fear has always been a powerful seller. And for decades, it sold life insurance too. From visuals of uncertainty to the unmistakable warning of “what if you’re not around tomorrow”, the category has long leaned on anxiety as its most persuasive tool. But as India’s consumers grow younger, more self-aware and increasingly purpose-driven, fear is losing its edge.

The legacy insurer, SBI Life Insurance is consciously stepping away from fear-led communication and towards resonance. At the centre of this shift is the brand’s newest move: after 25 years in the market, onboarding not one, but two brand ambassadors, and framing them not as distant superstars, but as everyday characters audiences can recognise themselves in.

Jolly, Polly and the power of familiar faces

SBI Life announced cricketers Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja as its brand ambassadors. For Ravindra Sharma, Chief of Brand, Corporate Communications and CSR at SBI Life Insurance, the decision was rooted in scale, responsibility and relevance.

“SBI Life is an all-India brand,” Sharma explains. “We have grown in the last 25 years, but if we really want to align with the country’s objective of 2047, we need to create deeper awareness, especially beyond urban India. And as a brand like SBI Life, it is also our responsibility to narrate and create this awareness.”

Cricket, for the brand, offered the most universal entry point. Free of language and cultural barriers, it cuts across geographies and generations. But instead of relying on conventional celebrity endorsement, SBI Life took a more character-driven route. Pant and Jadeja appear as “Jolly” and “Polly”, not mascots, Sharma insists, but familiar, relatable figures.

“The star power never goes away,” he says. “But if we really want to connect, presenting them as common people having light conversations helps the message land better. When the narrative is simple, the awareness around life insurance becomes easier to digest.”

The pairing also carries symbolic weight. Youth and experience, aspiration and responsibility, it’s a balance SBI Life believes mirrors the life stage of its evolving consumer.

The ambassadors may be new, but the thinking behind them isn’t. Sharma is clear that SBI Life has been gradually distancing itself from fear-led messaging for the last few years.

“As a brand, we’ve been talking about ‘Apne liye aur Apno ke liye’, where responsibility and aspiration go hand in hand,” he says. “We consciously wanted to move away from fear, and we’ve been doing that for the past many years. The question was, how do you communicate this? We felt it had to be done in the simplest manner.”

The answer lay in simplicity. In the campaign films, characters are driven by aspirations, dreams of progress, security and fulfilment. Jolly and Polly gently nudge them towards responsibility as a means to achieve those aspirations. 

Research played a decisive role in shaping this approach. According to Sharma, audiences responded more strongly when the cricketers appeared as everyday characters rather than as themselves. “The resonance is higher,” he says. “That’s why we chose to create Jolly and Polly rather than just presenting them as Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja.”

Offline at the core of JFM media plans

For SBI Life, January-February-March remains an important window, but not one that dictates a complete strategic overhaul. Sharma shares that the new campaign isn’t designed to dramatically alter the brand’s JFM playbook overnight.

Where the shift does become visible is in media thinking. With a new narrative to introduce, SBI Life aims to anchor its JFM strategy around impact.

“The media mix for the first three months will be different from the rest of the year. We’re not following a traditional media strategy this time,” Sharma explains. “Because it’s a new narrative, we want audiences to see it, hear it, and feel it. So we’ve defined our primary medium as audio-visual, not traditional versus digital. Wherever audio-visual allows us to reach our target audience — urban or rural — that’s what we’re choosing. 

Television and digital video form the campaign’s backbone, supported by cinema and selective outdoor to build frequency and sustain recall. “Audio-visual is the primary medium, with cinema and outdoor helping sustain it,” he adds.

In terms of allocation, the balance still tilts towards scale. “Roughly, 65 % is offline and around 35% is online.”

This calibrated approach also reflects how SBI Life views consumer behaviour during JFM today. While the quarter continues to see heightened activity, Sharma notes that the category is no longer bound to a single buying season.

“Holistically, if you look at life insurance, not everyone buys during JFM anymore. There was a time when a large section of consumers would purchase only during JFM,” he says. “Now, consumers are more need-based in their buying, and SBI Life believes in that. You see purchases happening throughout the year. But yes, the most visible spike continues to be in this period.”

For now, the brand is in observation mode. “In the long run, yes, we expect impact. But right now, it’s a wait-and-watch phase to see how audiences accept Jolly and Polly. That response will guide what comes next,” says Sharma.

Learning and unlearning in 2026

For Sharma, the problem isn’t legacy thinking, but sameness. As consumers grow more informed and purpose-driven, generic reassurance no longer builds belief. “Today’s consumer is very smart and purpose-driven. Trust is already given to established brands.”

In categories like life insurance, trust in institutions is already assumed, Sharma points out. “The real question for consumers is: Should I believe this brand? Is it doing what it says? Belief comes when a brand consistently shows who it is and sticks to it, instead of being generic or overly conventional.”

The second shift, he believes, is demographic. Sharma says, “The biggest shift is in consumer demographics. Over the next few years, the wallet will largely be with Millennials and Gen Z, around 65-70% of buying power.”

For BFSI brands, this means sharper choices. “As BFSI brands, we need to be very mindful of who we are talking to and what we are saying,” he adds.

By softening the category’s sharpest edges, moving away from anxiety, embracing aspiration, and speaking in a language younger consumers recognise, the brand is signalling a shift in how it wants to be perceived.