In a conversation with Manifest, Sai Narayan, chief marketing officer, Policybazaar, shed light on the brand’s approach to marketing and advertising in a highly under-penetrated category, and balancing long-term brand building with performance marketing by leveraging India’s love for sports, celebrities, and influencers. He also emphasised why the brand chooses to address ‘unpleasant truths’, in its term insurance campaigns, even at the risk of censure.

Narayan described the brand’s marketing evolution as a deliberate and phased journey aimed at reshaping consumer behaviour and building trust in a traditionally agent-driven industry. 

“While we have been in business since 2008, we started actively advertising and building the category only around 2013,” he stated, noting that the journey can be broken down into three phases:

In the first phase, the challenge was to introduce the idea that insurance could be compared and bought online, centering on creating awareness about the platform’s existence. “We wanted to put the power into the hands of the consumer—to enable them to compare and choose what worked best for them, rather than being sold to,” he indicated, highlighting the brand’s initial ‘Ullu Mat Bano’ (Don’t Be A Fool) campaigns and the early Kapil Sharma ads, where the messaging focused on “building FOMO.” Comparing the effort to how quick commerce is changing consumer behaviour around grocery shopping today via habit formation, he said, “We were trying to shift insurance from a push product to a drawing-room conversation.” 

The second phase, Narayan explained, was about deeper category creation. “We identified a significant white space in health and term insurance, which aren’t mandatory like motor insurance,” he said while pointing out that the Indian middle class was “severely underinsured”.

“We decided to address the issue head-on, unlike other ads that avoided the hard truths. The ‘Yamraj’ campaign featuring Akshay Kumar took on these themes with humour, and we used mass-reach platforms like IPL and the World Cup to amplify the message. Even today, we probably account for the lion’s share of category-building spends in term and health insurance.”

Noting that insurance is the only category where a consumer buys a product, and wishes he never has to use it, Narayan said, “And now I think we are in the third phase, which is the single most important reason why a consumer buys insurance, i.e. the claim settlement.” 

Underlining the brand’s investment in building dedicated, on-ground support around the same, he stated, “Claim settlement is the moment of truth, and at that point of time if a customer does not get a good experience, it leaves a very bitter taste.”

“There is still a huge section of users who hesitate to buy insurance because of the uncertainty around claims settlement,” he added.

Delving on the recent controversy around a Policybazaar ad featuring a woman blaming her deceased husband for not buying term insurance, Narayan has no regrets. “Every ad will evoke mixed responses. For every person who found it insensitive, there were many who said it reflected reality. If a family’s breadwinner passes away without insurance, the financial burden is real—and we didn’t sugarcoat that. Some may not like it, but it’s the category truth.”

Narayan shared that the brand saw a sharp spike in website traffic after the ad aired, which showed that the message resonated with viewers. “Don't shy away from saying the category truth,” he stressed.

Emphasising the critical role of sports - particularly cricket - in driving brand visibility and consumer recall in India, Narayan said, “We’ve been actively advertising on cricket since 2013-14, because very soon we realised that cricket is the only sport or activity in India, that truly delivers mass reach—it brings together male and female audiences, entire families, and cuts across demographics.” And in India, brands are built on sports, he added, sharing his observation over the years that ‘the big brands usually save their best campaigns for cricket.’ 

Narayan further pointed out that sports marketing is especially powerful for a digital-first brand like Policybazaar because it allows for immediate measurement of campaign impact. “We can see the difference in traffic and the leads of different product categories. So it's very easy for us to see the success metric of a specific media property." 

Talking about how data science shapes their decision-making, he said, "We have enough data points from the past to say that cricket works. And so we continue to invest in the sport.” 

Read the full chat with Narayan in our May issue. Click here to buy it!