1.4 billion strong, India felt strangely comfortable with a dark truth. Accidental deaths led the world, yet insurance remained an afterthought. The culprit? A national shield of optimism bias. The unshakable belief that "it won't happen to me." Evidenced by the fact that India is the second-most under-insured country in the world with an insurance gap of $27 billion. The falsely comforting thought of 'invincibility' left India exposed.

HDFC Life, India's leading insurer, understood the true cost of this bias. Millions felt ‘invincible’ enough to not plan for life’s uncertainties and left their families tragically exposed. The challenge was to shatter this very illusion of ‘false invincibility’ and make life insurance not just a maybe, but a necessity. A genuine safety net for loved ones facing life's unpredictable blows.

Our Objectives: Increase brand awareness, brand consideration, website traffic, and ultimately, sales of HDFC Life term insurance products.

Indians, it turned out, were more passionate about engaging with a cricketer's future than their own. This sparked the campaign's core idea: inviting India to deliberate on superstar cricketer Rishabh Pant’s predictive data despite knowing that he’d recently met with a tragic accident. Working with a team of data scientists we fed Rishabh's historical data to Sports Predictions Models and generated Rishabh's future stats, predictions that appeared on billboards across the country. The country witnessed all these predictions fail. This caught the nation off guard and exposed the limitations of data and the harsh reality of life's unpredictability.

HDFC Life knew ‘dry’ data wouldn't budge the "it won't happen to me" mentality of India. We needed a strategy that could captivate the country just like a nail-biting cricket match. Cricket isn’t just a sport, it’s an obsession. And so is making predictions about it – a kind of data we enjoy.

Leading us to our insight - we only see data that suits us, makes us happy. We forget that life’s unpredictability wins against data every-time. HDFC Life decided to leverage the obsession with cricket predictions to expose this fundamental truth.

And this sparked a daring plan – Data vs Life. We partnered with a real-life hero - Rishabh Pant, to show India how data can fail in the face of life's unpredictability. This exposed the limitations of data and reiterated the need for a safety-net to India’s ‘invincibles’.

Cricket fans in India devour player data. But our research revealed a surprising truth: they cared more about predicting a cricketer's future than protecting their own. This data insight sparked our idea - "Data vs Life." Inviting India to analyse and debate Rishab Pant’s predictive data, triggering intense curiosity among fans who were used to analysing cricket data for their favourites anyway. But since Pant recently met with a tragic accident, all predictions would fail. This shattered the illusion of data's control and exposed life's unpredictability, even for the seemingly invincible. By harnessing data within a cultural context, the campaign tackled India's "optimism bias" and positioned HDFC Life as the answer to life's unknowns.

Data vs Life wasn't just a campaign; it was a cultural touchstone. It sparked a national conversation. News channels took notice, and conversations about life insurance surged.

It challenged a deeply rooted belief and, in doing so, positioned HDFC Life as the protector against life's unpredictability. The campaign's impact resonated beyond the insurance industry, proving that a well-crafted story can bridge the gap between data and human behaviour, potentially inspiring future campaigns to follow suit.

• Business Impact: 21% growth in sales compared to 2022.

• Brand Awareness & Consideration: Reached 78% and 73% respectively.

• Website & Video Engagement: Website visits increased by 200% and video views reached 30 million.

• Brand Perception: Successfully positioned HDFC Life as a protector against life’s uncertainties.

• Industry Impact: Highlighted the importance of life insurance in a culturally relevant way.