HDFC Life Celebrates Father's Day with Interactive Mobile Ad; Integrates Real-Time Facial Expression Detection and Speech Recognition to Engage Users

mCanvas, the experiential storytelling ad platform for small screens has created an interactive mobile ad for HDFC Life on Father's Day. Highlighting gratitude as the central theme of the campaign, the creative enables each user to share a selfie and a personalised voice note with their father on WhatsApp. The recipient can then view the message on a microsite.

Further, the brand desired to establish a connection between a father that protects the family and HDFC Life that protects its insured customers.

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Partnering with mCanvas, the brand is celebrating the day with an ad that opens to the copy ‘Fathers always find the greatest happiness in seeing their children happy.’ which transitions to ‘On this special day, show some appreciation for the man who always puts your happiness first!’. A ‘Let’s Go!’ button on the screen activates the phone’s front camera and encourages users to give their widest smile. Using real-time face expression detection technology, the smile triggers the photo to be captured.

Users are then prompted to activate the phone’s microphone and record a personalised voice note of up to 15 seconds, conveying their love for their father. The ad then transitions to the closing screen that displays the selfie and the voice note, and a ‘Share Your Message’ CTA that allows users to share the message with their father on WhatsApp.

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A link to the message is shared with the recipient, which leads to the microsite. The recipient can see the image and hear the voice note on the microsite and can simply create one himself and share with his father. Another CTA ‘Plan Now’ directs users to the brand’s landing page for information on insurance plans.

Reaching over 2 million users, the campaign is witnessing impressive 2% click-through rate, which is 10 times the 0.20% industry average for mobile banners. Users are spending 16 seconds, on average, engaging with the creative.

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Vishal Subharwal, EVP – E-commerce & Digital Marketing, HDFC Life said, “On Father’s Day, it was important to encourage users to express their gratitude to their father with an ad that would go above and beyond the regular wishing traditions. Partnering with mCanvas has given us the opportunity to leverage the capabilities of mobile to provide users with a unique, yet memorable experience.”

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Vishal Rupani, Co-founder and CEO, mCanvas concluded, “In order to make this day a special one, it was crucial to create a seamless and memorable experience for users on small screens. Enabling them to take a selfie and record a personalized voice note which could be shared directly on WhatsApp, allows them to deepen the emotional connection with their father.”

About mCanvas:

mCanvas is an experiential storytelling platform that helps brands emotionally connect with their audiences on small screens. Our mobile ads and content marketing solutions make experiences interactive and memorable by etching phone sensors and device features into the brand narrative. mCanvas is creating ‘wow’ moments every day by reinventing formats, building tools, and providing a marketplace (of 100+ publishers like The Times of India, The Indian Express, Entrepreneur India, CarDekho, ScoopWhoop) to run these experiences at scale. To see our award-winning work and learn more, visit: uattest2.mcanvas.com

About HDFC Life:

HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited (formerly HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company Limited) ('HDFC Life' / ‘Company’) is a joint venture between HDFC Ltd., India’s leading housing finance institution and Standard Life Aberdeen, a global investment company.

Established in 2000, HDFC Life is a leading long-term life insurance solutions provider in India, offering a range of individual and group insurance solutions that meet various customer needs such as Protection, Pension, Savings, Investment, Annuity and Health. As on March 31, 2020, the Company had 37 individual and 11 group products in its portfolio, along with 6 optional rider benefits, catering to a diverse range of customer needs.

HDFC Life continues to benefit from its increased presence across the country having a wide reach with 421 branches and additional distribution touch-points through several new tie-ups and partnerships. The count of our partnerships is in excess of 270, comprising traditional partners such as NBFCs, MFIs and SFBs, and includes more than 40 new-ecosystem partners. The Company has a strong base of financial consultants.

For more information, please visit our website, www.hdfclife.com. You may also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.