Yuvraj’s Insurance Ad Shows Marketing’s Ugly Face

Timing is important both in cricket and life, and more so in advertising.

It is sad to hear that Yuvraj Singh has been diagnosed with stage one cancer, and he is undergoing chemotherapy at the Cancer Research Institute in Boston. But it is even sadder, if not shocking, to see a television commercial featuring him endorsing a life insurance product.

Any intelligent and smart marketing guy would push the ad now at any cost to drive home the point.

But it is nothing but insensitive, perhaps inhuman, to air the ad in which a fit and philosophical Yuvi talks about the unpredictabilities in life—that you don’t know when ‘life can bowl a googly at you’--while he is fighting cancer.

Those who watch the ad know for sure that they all need a life insurance cover because you hear from the horse’s mouth that a national hero who had played a significant role in winning the World Cup for India hardly a year ago is now fighting cancer.

The marketing brains of the national company have hit the nail exactly on its head by pushing the ad into the news bulletins today when all the channels had the Yuvi news item in the headlines and constantly scrolling across the screen.

Interestingly, the ad in which Yuvi endorsed an energy supplement has him replaced with Salman Khan—full of life and vigour. After a few minutes you see Yuvraj talking about the ebbs and flows of life.

One cannot but kick the walls of the bedroom in angst against the way consumerism has lost its sensitivity. Or, has consumerism ever had a heart?

Yuvi’s family, especially his parents, would not take it well to see their son, the personification of youthful vigour and zest not so long ago, now advising his fans across the nation to go for a life insurance cover.

It is not wrong, by no means. In fact, from a marketing point of view it can’t get closer to the bull’s eye to sell a product. The hero who endorses the product himself has been taken aback by the cruel surprise that life has thrown at him.

But the company would have done Yuvraj a great honour by not running the ad at a time when the precociously talented southpaw is undergoing chemotherapy. The tumour that he has been diagnosed with is reportedly not malignant and he might be back on the field carting those famous sixes. That’s another story, but to run the ad, using his unfortunate passage in life as a marketing tool is callous and pathetic.

It is not a brilliant ad campaign but a poor display of human values and ethics. Would a Yuvi smarting under the shocking events in his life approve of the ad running this time? He may not have a say since he has been paid to shoot it, but to run it on national channels talks volumes of our collective apathy and callousness. None of his parents has spoken to any media, and it is understandable, and that makes the timing of the ad even worse, and it leaves an ill-feeling towards the brand. It is just another example of the corporate world’s opportunistic character.

In other words, the marketing department of the insurance firm has done a rather foolish thing by airing the ad because it can be a boomerang and pull the brand value down.

Yuvraj’s last tweet, on Jan. 27, said he’s inspired by the legendary American cyclist Lance Armstrong’s story of surviving cancer and winning the Tour de France for a record seventh time.

The 30-year-old tweeted that he was reading autobiography “It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life”. “I’m sure it will motivate me and pull me throu(gh) this time! Livestrong Yuvstrong!" he tweeted. Another way of reading the tweet is to know how anxious Yuvraj is about the tumour and his comeback to active cricket.

The insurance company, which has many other business verticals, would have set an example of business with a human touch had it not run the commercial, at least on a day when the news about the player undergoing chemotherapy was flashed across the nation.

When the Social Media platforms are inundated with wishes and prayers for the player who is known for his fighting spirit, the business house that ran the commercial has in fact cut a sorry figure.

We live in a cut-throat world in which we come across nearly 5000 message a day, and to rise above all these to sell our brand we need to bury values and sensitivities. But then, for what?

Yuvi may come back and pick up the ball from anywhere outside the off-stump and send it into the sea of frenzied people at the midwicket, but to see him selling life insurance policy while he himself is fighting a tumour precariously tucked somewhere close to his heart is not palatable at all.