How AI is Transforming Marketing: Kotak Life EVP’s Bold Predictions

Prasad Pimple: AI is going to stay here and it is AI is going to stay here and it is going to enable us to better the customer experience significantly Though machines are going to take care of a lot of transactional activities, the strategizing how it should get orchestrated activities, the strategizing that how it should get orchestrated From better customer experience that will remain in the control of human beings. 

Mehul Ashar: Welcome to The Growth Genius podcast powered by Infidigit. This is where we bring growth stories in marketing and business to you. Without further ado, join me in welcoming Mr. Prasad Pimple, the EVP and Head of Digital Business Unit at Kotak Life. Prasad, thanks a lot for coming on the Growth Genius Podcast. It’s truly a pleasure for us to have you here on the show. 

Prasad: Thanks, Mehul. Thanks. Thanks for this podcast. 

Mehul: So, Prasad, I wanted to ask you, you know, So Prasad, I wanted to understand a few things about Marketing. So, marketing has changed a lot over the past few years. How do you reach out to your consumers in this digital age? 

Prasad: Yeah, so now I have seen marketing over the last 20 years. It has changed. But one thing has not changed Or I would say two things have not changed. One is how we reach the consumers, the target consumers the modes have changed over the years Earlier, we used to do direct mailing activity where we used to send a physical mailer to the customer. Then we started sending emails and today we reach out to the customers with the help of a lot of digital platforms you have come up with, including Google, and the Meta Universe. All those platforms are available through which we can reach out to the customers. The second part is how I engage the customers with my communication. How do I create that interest for my products and services? These two things have not changed. Modes have changed, and the mediums have changed But the way we conduct the marketing activity to generate customer awareness, build that awareness into a consideration, that consideration into a purchase intent, and finally purchase intent to the actual acquisition, that funnel has not changed much. The good part is now with the help of digital platforms and the help of digital platforms and digital tracking, the analytics, with the multiple solutions available, I can track the entire funnel. Earlier, that funnel was quite weak. We were not able to track the funnel. But now that opportunity is available. So, from that particular perspective, consumers have So, from that particular perspective, consumers have not changed, but their expectations have changed. What they expect now is a quicker understanding of my product through my communication. Earlier I would send a DM to the customer, they will go through it. Earlier, I would send long-form content to them, they will go through it. But today that preferences, those preferences are changing. Customers have their own preferred mode of content consumption. I might like a consumption of content in the form of a video somebody might like it in the form of audio somebody might like it in the form of nice audio somebody might like it in the form of nice infographics somebody might like it in the form of a text. So those things keep changing. So from that particular perspective, it has become more challenging. Earlier, it was more demographic laid segmentation and demographic laid segmentation used to convert into communication for those specific demographics. Now that is not the scenario. Within demographics, I need to find multiple things. For example, I am as a consumer, I like content that is more data-oriented and which is more text-oriented. Rather than believing and trusting a video that is coming my way, I believe more in something which is written, and printed in a well-articulated data-driven manner. I prefer that kind of communication. Now when it comes to Mehul, Mehul might feel that, okay, a more emotional communication, which has more emotional appeal, which is more video-based, which is nudging my correct emotion towards the product. That is what is helping Mehul to understand that particular product better. to understand that particular product better. So, it’s not just demographics. Demographic-wise, Mehul and Prasad are similar, similar in age and everything is similar. But when it comes to the consumption of content that varies a lot, their preferences are changing a lot. And that’s where the challenge which has come as a And that’s where challenge which has come as a part of this entire marketing to the consumers, how do I reach the consumers or her preferred mode of communication as well as the preferred type of communication, basically archetypes rather than demographics? That’s where the major shift in Marketing has happened with this digital image. 

Mehul: That’s, that’s quite true and fascinating. With the kind of development that has happened with the tools, the consumers also become smart and they also want to revert in, you know, less than 24 hours or in less than few minutes in some industries that, that’s very well put. And obviously, the communication has to be more and more personalized for, you know, us to get in touch with those consumers. So. Yeah, very well said Prasad, thanks for that. Yeah. Prasad, what is your take on AI in Marketing? 

Prasad: Yeah, I think the AI market is going to be a far bigger thing. See normally how I look at it, if something gets early success, a trend, if it starts getting early success, then its scale-up is really, really fast. Right? So normally most people say that, okay, when it comes to the products and the adoption of the services, Facebook took many years to reach a billion mark, and new services take maybe a couple of weeks to reach that particular mark. I heard sometime back that Chat GPT took some I heard sometime back that Chat GPT took some hours to reach the same kind of mark. hours to reach the same kind of mark. If that kind of adoption is happening, in the case of AI and Gen AI, and the case of AI and Gen AI, and from the marketing perspective, already so many solutions have gone into which will enhance the customer experience. I think in the case of marketing AI will completely change the current landscape. So, I’ll give you a couple of my thoughts on it. So number one thought is when it comes to communication development, the biggest roadblock for personalization or hyper-personalization was creating the content. So much content If I need to create for every type of customer segment or a micro-segment or a nano segment or where every customer itself is a segment, then I need to create so many communications, and I need to develop those particular parts. Today, Gen AI-based apps or modules can Today, Gen AI-based apps or modules can quickly do that job for you. So that is one part which is communication development where AI is going to come big time. Started making some kind of an impact, but I think couple of years it will become a significantly bigger contributor. The second part that will come is targeting the right customer at the right time with an efficient media buying, automated media buying kind of activity. Today what happens is that you do a lot of campaigns, you generate insights and you utilize those insights for future campaigns. So, normally this cycle works on a weekly basis or fortnightly basis and you decide what insights I’m getting from the previous campaign and how to optimize my future campaign or my next campaign. This is the insights I’m getting. It is still slightly manual where you end up analyzing the data and finding out insights. I think after a few, I’m not talking about years, I think machines will do on their own how do I optimize my media buying, target the right customer, take real-time insights from the campaigns whatever has happened today, get from the campaigns whatever has happened today, getting all the insights on their own and applying those insights on the next day campaign, I think it is going to happen automatically and not manually. Yes, when the machine is going to compete with another machine, there will be a few challenges, but let’s see how it goes in the future. The third important part that is definitely going to happen is consumers instead of doing a plain search on a Google platform or a Bing platform, they might start shifting towards something like Gen AI-based chat GPT kind of a solution and sooner We all need to start worrying about not just organic searches on Google and organic searches on YouTube. We need to give equal importance to organic searches or organic queries, not rather such as organic queries on Chat GPT kind of a platform, and then connect it back to what we are currently doing. So that particular thing will soon come Whether it is Gemini or it is the Chat GPT, it will definitely come to that solution sooner than later. The fourth important part is that the machine is going to take care of a lot of transactional activities, the strategizing how it should get orchestrated activities, the strategizing that how it should get orchestrated from better customer experience that will still remain in the control of human beings. I don’t think that control can go to a machine completely because that might cause a few challenges. That’s what I mentioned, that when a machine competes with other machines. So, how I look at it from that perspective, is that when it comes to managing the overall campaigns, when the machine is competing with another machine, and that will create a lot of challenges, it will all depend upon how we human beings strategize our entire campaign orchestration so that the customer experience is not getting impacted. That particular part will play an important role and where the entire, not just one. Like in the case of SEO, so many rules are written by Google and so much logic and everything, they are putting something similar, the AI engine, or maybe the Chat GPT engine has to create so that it will provide that seamless experience to the customers. So I think that’s that way The overall marketing or the AI role in marketing will come into, the second important part, that human interactions which we are having with the customers or Manual chat, or even a telephonic conversation with the customers, that might undergo a lot of transformation when it comes to AI Marketing. Not just the text part of it, not just the image part of it, not just the video part of it, but even the interactions which we have with the customers, that will also undergo a transformation with the help of AI And AI is going to stay here and it is going to enable us to better the customer experience significantly Because once trained, it can deliver that consistent experience to the customers. Yes, in a complex situation, you will require a human being with a lot of emotions to tackle the customers. But in most activities, I think bots can take care of even the human interactions how I look at it, a human being can get tired in the evening and that can give a poor experience to the customers. Humans can forget a particular point of a particular product proposition and that can create a poor customer experience But the consistency which AI model or AI bot can provide to the customer, I think will transform the overall BFSI or most of the industries in the coming future.

Mehul: Wonderful. That was pretty elaborate. I mean, you covered something that is actually, you know, on the cutting edge of AI right now, as you talked about, you know, harnessing the consumer experience. So, in fact, I come, I came across a startup that is basically an AI platform, and it is done by somebody who is, you know, exceptionally good at AI. So he works with the Government and the Military, etc, on stealth projects. So he came to us and he showed us this product where they capture the emotions of the consumers in healthcare and other sectors, and they give a detailed report in terms of, you know, what are the negative or the positive aspects of this experience and this pertains to which department, you know, so that was, that was pretty exciting. They had come to our office. They came to our office and actually showed this to us. They are the good friend of ours. So, yeah, you, you know, you nailed it at the lie, you know, in the, in the last point that you know, this is something which also AI can do that, you know, a gathering of these, you know, softer aspects of consumer experience and actually translating it into actionable points for the management. So that is something that is, you know, they have started doing that already. Wonderful. 

Prasad: Completely agree. That the entire transformation of AI, not just in every field of business,

Mehul: he did it with the government. He worked on the elections and, In which constituency you should use, what kind of words, depending upon the earlier feedback of the speeches made by the candidate. So it was something very interesting to know. So, Prasad, I wanted to ask you, you know, your professional life has transitioned across various industries, so your professional life has transitioned across various industries, so please tell us more about your journey. 

Prasad: Yeah, So, when I talk about my professional life and the number of industries I worked in, I never decided upon a particular industry that this is what I want to do. Once I have finished my MBA, I want to work in the field of Marketing and Business. And from that perspective I through campus and got into Kotak Mahindra Bank. That was the year 2005 and at that point in time I got the role of Brand Marketing in Kotak Mahindra Bank. Kotak Mahindra Bank at that point in time was a smaller bank, and had just got the license from the regulator my role was predominantly to launch branches at that point in time and build awareness for Kotak Mahindra Bank. And that’s where I got introduced to the field of marketing in the real sense. And that was my introduction to understanding the consumers. My introduction to understanding consumer behavior, then launching the branches, looking at the if I talk about every branch at that point in time used to get launched in a new city. It used to be the first branch in that city. The experience was wonderful to understand the local culture, and what they look forward to in a bank and then accordingly plan the entire marketing activity and initiatives. That was my initial role and that gave me a lot of understanding about how the customer experience and how the customer understands customer behavior results in a proper brand positioning and the brand awareness building. From there I wanted to get into the business side of it, its marketing not just from the perspective of generating awareness and consideration for the brand, but also converting that awareness consideration into a purchase intent and converting that purchase intent into a final business. Manage the entire PnL. And that’s when I moved into ICICI Bank and I started managing the credit card portfolio. There again my role was to manage the value-added services to be cross-sold to the credit card customer base. That was my first PnL experience which helped me generate a lot of business understanding. That’s how I moved into the business part of it where marketing has become one of the most important enablers to the business rather than just one particular function. The kind of learnings I got in ICICI bank from the perspective of credit card management, how to look at the customer lifecycle management, how to use that lifecycle management in a cross-sell modeling, when to pitch, what to pitch and how we build the entire customer value framework. That was the true business PnL management experience I got, which later on I later used in the change in the industry. I moved into telecom. I worked with a couple of telecom brands at that point in time, and at that point in time the telecom was growing in India significantly. Every month, we add a million customers, and the entire learning of whatever I have got in Kotak Bank for understanding the consumers and whatever I got as a part of ICICI Bank in terms of understanding the PnL management gone into managing the customer acquisition as well as the customer usage and retention in the telecom industry. And that’s what I was managing for prepared and postpaid customers in two companies I worked with, which are Vodafone and Tata Docomo. Then I moved into life insurance where I started setting up the again, the usage and retention functions for life insurance companies again, first in the industry, from that perspective, life insurance was always about acquiring new customers. It was not looking at that part of the time in terms of selling more policies to the customers, getting more renewals, and getting customer engagement done. That is how I started with a life insurance journey with HDFC Life. Then I moved into the E-commerce and digital marketing function where I was introduced to entire digital marketing, performance marketing, contacts center management, and how to convert the customer’s exploratory interest to a purchase. That’s where that got introduced. And then I moved into Kotak Life, managing a similar portfolio, that includes four business verticals. In Kotak Life, the digital business unit is like an SEO where we have four business verticals, the D2C, online partnerships, digital banker, and digital alliances, coupled with digital technology because that becomes more important when it comes to digital business. We created an entirely digital business unit that can service customers who want to purchase a life insurance policy on their own via a simplified journey. That’s where the entire fun has started happening, where we are now creating the solutions and journeys and customers are purchasing on their own, that’s where the real fun is and building and scaling that business is what I’m currently trying to do. 

Mehul: Obviously, we can see that with the interactions that we have with your team as well. So, thanks Prasad for taking us through your journey. It is quite interesting and exciting, I would say, especially the current role that you are playing somewhere It’s like a culmination of all that you have done earlier is now, you know, coming to play. 

Prasad: So to say, even I feel so The way it has happened, it was not planned in that manner. I still believe in the concept that you flow with the flow and finally, you reach the destination with whatever you accumulated on the journey.

Mehul: Can you share your insights on the relevance of content marketing here, please? 

Prasad: Yeah, so as I mentioned in that previous point as well, what is happening currently as a part of the content marketing customer preferences has changed. They want and this is their archetype. I need to accommodate those preferences. That understanding of the customer or the expectation of the customer. What is the relevance of content marketing in today’s world? The most important part is, as I mentioned, that today I can track the entire customer funnel from my first communication to the customer, which is to just make him aware of my product solution or service, to bring him to my website for more exploration of the product, to finally pushing that product customer to create an intent for purchase and finally creating the actual purchase. From that level, it has moved to some other level as well. The content marketing plays a very important role, not just in onboarding. But it also plays an important role in terms of customer engagement, in terms of getting the renewals of the policies, getting the revival, getting references from the customer, then and finally the repurchase of another product with that product customer. So relevance of content marketing is now across the customer lifecycle management, and not just to the onboarding part of it. That’s number one. Number two, when it comes to content marketing, I need to consider where exactly this customer is today in terms of awareness, consideration, and the purchase journey. If somebody is currently looking at it, I would say exploring the product, then the entire brand awareness, the trust then the capability of my particular product, all those things become far more important when it comes to content marketing. If I give the example of a classic example of newspapers, why do newspapers have that authentic, transparent educational linkage to them Because of the kind of content that is coming as a part of a printed newspaper, people always thought that it’s authentic and that used to create a lot of trust in the minds of people. Same thing What we need to do now today when it comes to digital-laid content marketing, is that content has to come across as authentic and transparent content. If I do not publish content that is transparent and authentic and value added to the customer, then even if it is written in a great manner, it doesn’t serve the purpose. So that is the number one insight I have that create a content which is authentic and transparent. The second one which is more about the customer engagement part of it, is that if I have come to your page and I have consumed some content, or if you have gone through one of your communications or gone through your video content, then customer expansion doesn’t end there. The customer expectations now lead me to the journey. I’m not saying the purchase journey, but the exploration journey. So customers’s expectations today are to keep me updated, keep me informed, continuously nudge me why keep me informed, and continuously nudge me why this is important because for any aspirational brand or any aspirational category, it is very easy to introduce the product solution to the customer. And the need or the want for which that particular product is designed gets triggered and customers end up purchasing it. There is an impulse purchase which is associated with it. But in the case of life insurance, it’s a very thought-through decision There is no impulse purchase Customer takes a lot of time to deliberate upon which insurance to purchase Why all those things come in the purchase cycle is bigger and hence this is the place where content marketing plays a very important role. To continuously engage with the customer, to keep him informed, continuously nudge the customer. All those things come into the picture and once he has become the customer, once he has decided to move ahead and purchase a product, then as a customer, how do I keep him engaged about his policy activities, about his renewals, about the future needs, or about the current needs and appropriate solution is available with the life insurance company, that activity without proper content marketing cannot be done. And that’s where onboarding and customer life cycle management or content marketing plays a very important role when it comes to any BFSI or life insurance company. 

Mehul: Since you talked about onboarding and customer lifecycle management, of course, before even onboarding comes, you know, the searchability of the right consumer So, you know, that is what my next question is all about. So where do you see organic search in the journey of building and growing the insurance business? 

Prasad: Yeah, I think it is the most important thing when it comes to organic search. I think when we talk about organic search, the important thing is that’s the only aspect which is having some sort of customer pool, rest all the communications across content marketing we do are the push based. Where I am pushing the solution, I am generating the need Whereas when it comes to organic search, that’s where the customer has decided to explore the product on his or her own and that’s where the magic happens. It is most important thing, but at the same time it is the most difficult thing to execute when it comes to getting advantage out of a organic search. Because organic search gives you a lot of things. Number one, if you are somebody searching a plain term insurance kind of a keyword or a plain unique kind of a keyword, the customer’s expectation is to get more information about how term insurance works. The kind of premium term insurance charges, the kind of cover one can get out of it. All that information is what customer is seeking at that point of time. If my organic listing in that entire sub page is happening in one, two, three level, that’s the best brand visibility any brand can today get. That beats any brand visibility today because customer is searching for something and you pop up as a first choice or second choice or third choice or third listing. I think that’s the best brand visibility. The second part is because there’s a pool that is involved as a part of customer intent. It’s not pushing is Pull, the convergence, the purchase intent is better, and as a result purchase percentages are significantly better. So when it comes to return on investment, that return on investment on any organic search-related activities is significantly higher as compared to what we get for any push campaign. So that is most important. The third important thing is that gives customers enough confidence trust and credibility for the brand that you are listing When I’m searching for it, that means a lot of consumers are going through it. A lot of consumers are also seeing the same thing. What this particular customer is saying, they get enough confidence and trust in that particular listing. So that is another important thing. The fourth important thing with this overall organic search in the journey of building any organic search in the journey of building business would be the data-driven insights. Somebody who is coming on their own and exploring the products and showing the purchase intent and purchasing the product. It gives me that preferred cohort which is currently looking at Kotak Life as a brand to explore and purchase the product. That gives me a lot of insights when I’m doing my push marketing campaigns, that this is the code that organically comes to you and looks for a life insurance solution and then ends up purchasing that particular product. Then how do I find those sets of customers, similar cohorts, the lookalike customers in my push paid campaigns, that yield a lot of positive results and then later on that same sort of customers are part of the full funnel marketing activity, end up getting targeted and when they feel interested in this entire product or solution, they end up coming organically to our website and that results into direct traffic, a direct brand preference, a direct consideration And that’s where the entire true sense of marketing starts. And I think organic search is the most important thing in this entire funnel.

Mehul: Wonderful. Thanks. Thanks for giving us that broad understanding of what organic search is all about. And probably rather it culminates into a more virtuous cycle of helping paid marketing as well as other marketing activities to gain more consumers. Thanks. Thanks for that. Prasad. Coming to the next question, what strategies do you use for creating brand experiences that resonate with the Indian audience in insurance? 

Prasad: So there are many, but I go by something which is very simple, that do what customers expect from you. So understanding the customer expectation, that So understanding customer expectations, becomes the most important thing. Once I know the expectations, then I can go about targeting the customer accordingly and do the personalization of the campaigns accordingly. Do my process announcement, my journey announcement, that entire part, everything starts with what customers expect from you. Now when it comes to the life insurance industry, what has happened? That life insurance journey is not as simple as what I do. On an Ecom website. Ecom website or Ecom app, it’s easier to search the Ecom website or Ecom app, it’s easier to search the products you’re looking for, select the product which is most suitable, and just click one or two clicks. You end up purchasing the product, you make the payment, the product will come to you or if it is a service it will get delivered to your email ID, in a fraction of seconds or on WhatsApp in a fraction of seconds. But if you have life insurance, that journey is not that simple. You need to provide certain information to the life insurance companies to make decisions about that application. You might need to undergo medical tests. You might need to provide further requirements. You might need to make a decision whether I should get this customer in or not. So a lot of things are going through as a part of a life insurance application. So, how I look at it is that if I need to create a brand experience that resonates with Indian customers as much as possible, I need to simplify my journey so that whatever customer is expecting from an e-commerce company, which is a quick, simple journey to purchase any product, a similar expectation I need to adhere to when it comes to a life insurance product. So what we normally do, the first thing is how do I make that journey simplified? How do I ensure as much as integrations into my journey so that customers need not punch in a lot of information on their own? How do I ensure that my journeys are broken into two, or three parts so that customers don’t want to do the entire journey in one go? He can He or she can do it in a staggered manner. So that parallel part is the number one thing, what we work upon from creating that brand experience, because that is the moment of truth. If I end up finding the journey too tedious, I will not do that journey on my own. So that’s the number one part. The number two part would be how to bring customers to the overall journey. And that’s where the brand experience and what we talked about in the previous question, the organic search part, the content marketing part comes into the picture. Customers today do expect from every industry that if you know me, use that information to better my experience. So if I have come to you in the past on your website, I’ve explored a particular product on your website. If I come back, don’t ask me to do that entire exploration journey Find your product where it is, and then go to that page and resume the journey. Or maybe resume the exploration part. So, they will expect you to have that entire segment-based personalization or my that entire segment-based personalization or my last visit, behavior-based personalization that comes as a part of the brand experience. And third, the most important part is how we make good use of creating the nudge to the customer to buy the life insurance product today. Today customers do expect that, okay, yes, life insurance is important. They do know that life insurance is important, but they need some trigger, some nudge to get into that particular journey. And there the entire communication part plays a very important role, how do I create that emotional appeal for customers to understand the importance of insurance and buying it now, that’s where the brand experience gets differentiated from other brands. If I can do these three activities together well, nudging them at the right point in time so that they can think about doing that journey on their own. If they’re not completing the journey in one go, how do I create that segment-based personalization so that whenever they come back to that journey, either purchase or exploration, I assist them to move into that journey rather than starting afresh? And third part is how do I do that journey in a very simplified manner so that they can happily do that journey and I can meet their expectation of it being quicker, not as quick as what they expect from an E-Com company, but still faster, quicker, easier to manage on their own. So these three things with which we generally try to build our unique brand experience. 

Mehul: Wonderful. And taking the example or the comparison of E-commerce which is quite fast-paced, I think life insurance as a sector has come a long way in terms of meeting customer expectations by enhancing the experience through various marketing efforts which are, you know, cutting-edge marketing efforts, not something which is outdated. So, that is something which is remarkable. Thanks. Thanks, Prasad. Now coming to the next question, you know, how do you stay ahead of digital marketing trends to maintain a competitive edge in the Indian insurance sector? 

Prasad: So I don’t know whether I am currently ahead in terms of any of the digital trades because they are changing so fast and you normally end up doing a catch-up game. How I look at it, rather than staying ahead in terms of trends, what one should look forward to is what is working for us. That’s how we look at it. So, there are multiple things how we go about doing our digital marketing. We know the set of customers, we know the kind of segments who are currently looking for life insurance, Lot of information analytics is available. The most important part is how we target those sets of customers. So a lot of experimentation is required when it comes to managing the proper targeting and it comes to managing the proper targeting and a lot of experiments do fail. And what we believe is that in the case of digital marketing, trends like trends or patterns will keep coming. But if it is not relevant to your category, your set of customers, your product category, or your industry type, then for the sake of experimentation we should not do it. Select the experimentation that is very relevant to your industry. That’s number one. For example, when the entire universe is talking about something called Metaverse we will create a virtual unit, and in that virtual unit, everybody will interact. That Metaverse will get created. It might happen in the future, I’m not denying that. But at that point, it was not that relevant. When it comes to a life insurance kind of industry, yes, few people did, and few instrumentation around it. Also, they didn’t work that way. But select the experimentation that is most relevant to your industry. That’s number one. That’s how we look for any digital marketing trait or any digital traits. Second, if you decide that is relevant and you must explore that, then do it early. Embracing and emerging technology earlier is always better than later. If it is relevant to your category, for example, today everybody is talking about AI and Gen AI. talking about the AI and Gen AI. Now there are multiple use cases that AI and Gen AI can solve for the life insurance industry. If I wait for somebody else to do it, then that brand experience, when I talked about that customer experience and customer expectation and fulfilling those customer expectations, a part of your brand experience strategy or your brand management strategy, if that is there, then I cannot allow somebody else to give that experience to the customers. I must do that experimentation first. Yes, it might fail. Any technology, any instrumentation is susceptible to failure. But what we believe is if you are failing, fail fast, move to some other thing. But if you are succeeding in that entire part, then scale it up faster so that it can become your brand’s competitive advantage, rather than you becoming a me-too brand that is trying to embrace that technology after everybody else has done it. So, that’s the second thing that we try to do, and the third most important thing is we just try to keep ourselves updated about what is happening in multiple industries, not just the life insurance industry, but multiple industries. Through conferences, seminars, through multiple activities. Because a lot of people are doing a lot of experimentations, everybody is thinking about enhancing the customer experience and a lot of experimentations are happening in the market and you get a lot of knowledge there in terms of what is working, what is not working, what you might not have even thought about to enhance the customer experience. Those ideas you do get out of those activities and that’s how we normally start building it. Like if I talk about the digital marketing initiatives for AI or email-based models and everything, we have done a lot of experimentation with Google and Meta to ensure that we are available to the customer in whichever format customer is interacting with or trying customer in whichever format customer is interacting or trying to interact with the brand. And that’s where most of the innovation we have done across the ecosystem to stay we have done across the ecosystem to stay in or at par with the customer expectations, rather than staying ahead of the trails. That’s how we have managed to do it. 

Mehul: What is your outlook on the insurance sector in India? 

Prasad: See the outlook. My outlook is that it is fantastic. Like, we all know that the penetration of insurance is significantly lower in our country. As a regulator has also decided upon one goal, by 2047, we need to ensure 100% of our population, is an insurable population. So that goal is already set out by our regulator. And looking at these two statements penetration is low, adoption is low, and at the same time, we need to achieve a significant adoption by 2047 or 100% adoption by 2047. The outlook is significantly better. And, I think, every industry goes through a moment of explosion. So if I talk about how the entire payment industry has gone through a moment of explosion with the help of UPI, or how the mutual fund industry has gone through an explosion with the help of their marketing campaign, ‘Mutual Fund Sahi Hai’ and entire ecosystem coming together to simplify the SIP part of it, I think that again created a significant explosion in mutual fundraising industry. I think something similar will also happen in the life insurance industry. One day people will realize the kind of risks we all carry in our lives Whether it is a risk of mortality, which is a risk of dying, or risk of morbidity, which is the risk of getting the disease, and the risk of longevity, which is outliving your savings. I think sooner than later customers will realize the importance of covering themselves against these three. Eventually, the risk of these three eventualities and the entire industry is currently trying to build that ecosystem through which the customers will come to know about it. Yes, COVID-19 as an event has already done some amount They have increased the speed of customers understanding this particular point, but that one understanding this particular point, but that one moment of explosion will definitely happen in the overall insurance industry. From the customer interest perspective, we all just need to keep nudging Customers keep doing our bit in terms of ensuring that we give them what they expect. We just build the experience that they expect and we create the products and solutions that can match their unique needs. Because the needs of the people who were born in 1960, the kind of needs they had in their 30’s and their 35’s and 40’s is those needs are completely different for today’s generation. Whether I call about millennials who are currently in their 40’s and Gen Z’s who are currently in their 30s, I think their needs are completely different And as an industry, we will definitely evolve which will result in the kind of goal we have already set up for 2047. I think that’s how I look at it from the outlook of the term insurance industry today. 

Mehul: Wonderful. I think overall this evolution game as far as India is concerned and you know, with the growing population and the penetration and you know, India planning to reach the 5 trillion mark which seems to be a possibility now, I think, you know, insurance sector of course has a very good chance of growing and long way of prospering as well. Thanks. Thanks, Prasad. Coming to the next question, any specific growth stories that you would like to share from your career? 

Prasad: Okay, so I’ll just give an example, I will not name the company I work for. So that, yeah, so that company taught me one most important thing, that how do you aim high in life and don’t achieve that aim? That is fine. So for example, rather than aiming low and succeeding in achieving that low target, how do you better aim high? And even if you fail, you fail higher than what you achieved as a lower target. So that was a very important lesson that I got and that created the entire growth mindset in me. So when I talk about this, I will just give the example as well that which someone in my previous organization narrated to me that I had achieved a certain number Let’s take the example that I achieved ten crores of revenue for the organization that year and I had taken a 20 Cr target for the next year And I was thinking that, okay, I’m doubling what I had done last year. So it is significantly higher and it is achievable as well. So that was my aim. And when I was presenting it to the business head, I got the response that think why you can’t do 200? So I said, I just did only ten and I’m in 20 and you are saying why can’t I do 200? So they, so the business head gave me a nice analogy. He mentioned that today you have gone into a jungle and you have killed one elephant and you are saying that, okay, I am going to again go into the jungle and kill two elephants next year. But I am saying that why not 20? Now you think what do you want to do? And I’ll give you more market insight as well that the jungle you are operating in has only ten elephants. So now you decide how you want to go about building your plan of action. Whether you want to go into another jungle to get more elephants or you want to invite elephants from other jungles to your jungle so that you can go and hunt them down. So think from that particular perspective and then you will end up creating a business plan which will help you build the growth in your overall approach. And I finally said, okay. And I created that plan for 200 Cr on Excel. We did achieve it, definitely. Yes. We didn’t achieve it, but we ended up somewhere about 47, 48 Cr in that particular year, which is significantly higher than what I was aiming earlier at 20 Cr. So, that entire thought process of that instead of having a fear of failure in terms of not achieving the target, rather than that having a growth mindset that can I deliver more than what I can do today, obviously with the help of a lot of unableness you need to put into that entire perspective. You need to think out of the box, You need to ensure that whatever you are committing is getting delivered All those things are there as a part of it. But thinking big opens up a lot of opportunities when it comes to business And that is the one story I always remember When it comes to any new business initiative I want to take, I always try to aim higher. Yes, I have failed multiple times, but that’s how I look at it. It’s more of a mindset than a excitement of achieving the task. 

Mehul: That’s pretty inspiring. Prasad, thanks. Thanks for sharing that. I think that is something which actually defines a growth mindset. So, thanks for that. Prasad, coming to the last question. You know, you are a senior professional and you have been there, done that. So just wanted to ask, you know, what are the four takeaways for budding professionals that you would like to end up with before signing off? 

Prasad: Four takers. Okay. A lot of takers you’re asking? Yeah. So most important thing I would say is that keep experimenting, that there is no fixed solution to any of the activities. And what has worked for somebody else might not work for you. So, you do your own experimentation, find out what is working for you, and just be at it. Don’t leave experimentation for anything else. Just keep doing that. Second important part is when you are experimenting, execute it well, because ideas are great, but execution is the most important thing. The people who currently win in the market are not the one who are doing it for the first time or the first more advantage. It is more about the better execution advantage. So when it comes to execution, execute it really well When it comes to your experimentations, third thing I would say is keep the customer experience behavior and insights always at the core of what you do. Because generally what happens, we end up thinking that this is my solution. I will throw that solution to all the customers who are in front of me, and I’ll expect them to accept that solution rather than that Just identifying the challenges, the problems, what those customers are facing. And how do you create a solution for those problems rather than just finding a solution, then force fitting into the customer need. That’s what I believe in. And the fourth thing I would say is keep learning. That’s what I am also trying to do, though You mentioned that Okay, I’m now good 20 years into my profession, but I still feel that most of the times what is happening, that things are changing so fast, so rapidly that if you are not learning those things on your own, somebody else will be far better than what you are today and then they will easily replace you if you don’t keep learning And if you are not at par with the trades which are currently happening in the market, then it’s very difficult to do a catch up game later on and succeed in life. So, just keep learning. Yes, lot of things you learn might not help you get any output out of it, but still learn it so that what will happen that one day you will not have a problem of somebody is coming and just replacing you because you are not keeping up with the trades which are happening in the market. So, this is how I look at the entire part. 

Mehul: Wonderful nuggets of wisdom I would say that you have gathered since past two decades of your experience. I think that is something that will surely inspire our audience. And thanks for coming on the show again and you know, making it a wonderful Podcast with a lot of insights on various topics. I can’t thank you enough. So pleasure to have pleasure having you. 

Prasad: Thanks for inviting me. It’s my pleasure to share all these insights. 

Mehul: So, Ladies and Gentlemen, we come to the end of yet another inspiring episode of The Growth Genius. Prasad this time gave us a lot of insights, not just about the insurance sector per se, but also about his take on various aspects of marketing, be it content, be it AI, or be it organic search for that matter. Do have a look at the podcast and also the shorts and reels that we keep posting. We are truly encouraged by the engagement that you provide us on various platforms. We are available on video as well as audio platforms. The link of all of them are shared in the descriptor below. So till the next episode of the Growth Genius, keep learning, keep inspiring.

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