Life Insurance Marketing in India - The
Changing Advertising & Promotion Norms 
 Forced to Sell Well?
In July 2002, India's state owned insurer, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) announced
aggressive marketing plans with a budget of around Rs 1 billion. The aim of this unusual decision was
to woo customers across the country through a multimedia campaign including advertisements on
the radio and the press media, the outdoor media and the television. However, this did not come as
a major surprise to industry observers who said that LIC did not have too many options. With the
insurance bill being passed in 2000, the Indian insurance sector saw a host of private players enter
the market with multinationals as their partners. These new players resorted to aggressive
marketing and advertisement strategies – something the market had never seen earlier. This sudden
spurt of advertisements and awareness programs was visible on all the media channels.
Print, electronic and outdoor advertisements of the new private insurers flooded could be seen
everywhere. This prompted many comparisons of such behavior of insurance companies with the
advertising frenzy of the dotcoms in India not too long ago – with similar full-page advertisements,
huge hoardings and costly electronic media advertisements.
According to a survey conducted by a leading marketing research firm, ORG Marg, brand awareness
of private insurers in India was increasing in the early 21st century. The difference in the level of
awareness of these new players as compared to the hitherto monopoly of LIC was decreasing fast
because of the aggressive advertising measures adopted by private insurers.