LIFE ISN'T OVER YET (ZINDAGI ABHI BAKI HAI)

TitleLIFE ISN'T OVER YET (ZINDAGI ABHI BAKI HAI)
BrandBIRLA SUN LIFE INSURANCE
Product / ServiceWEALTH WITH PROTECTION SOLUTIONS
CategoryA02. Best Non-Fiction Program, Series or Film where a client has successfully created a reality, documentary or light entertainment show around a product(s) or brand(s)
EntrantJWT INDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Entrant Company JWT INDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Contributing Company JWT INDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Contributing Company 2 COLORS VIACOM 18 MEDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Production Company EXPLORERS New Delhi, INDIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Gurmeet Sapal Explorers Director
Rajesh Mehta Jwt India Strategic Planner
Nazneen Dharamsey Jwt India Sr. Account Executive
Dipika Narayan Jwt India Executive Business Director
Siddharth Joglekar Jwt India Copywriter
Vivek Prabhukeluskar Jwt India Art Director
Dipesh Kowarkar Jwt India Sr. Creative Director
Nandita Chalam Jwt India Executive Creative Director
Senthil Kumar Jwt India National Creative Director
Swati Bhattacharya Jwt India National Creative Director
Tista Sen Jwt India National Creative Director

The Campaign

Branded Entertainment is quite advanced in India today with major brands like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Nike, etc. regularly sponsoring content on TV and Films. The rules are quite clear. Products cannot be quietly sneaked into content without making suitable payments. Most Branded Content in India is Reality Shows, Song and Dance contests , music shows and General Entertainment Shows.

Results

India is a country where Cancer is such a dreaded disease that people choose to hush it up. In such a country Yuvraj Singh, a cricketer who won the Man of the Tournament Award in India's Cricket World Cup victory, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer where the track record of cures was low. Yet, Yuvraj decided to share his story with the world so that others can draw inspiration from it. Birla Sun Life Insurance was honoured to partner him in this noble endeavour. The documentary was shot, among other places, at the hospital where he was treated and showed some of the most vulnerable painful moments of his treatment. It carried interviews and warm personal chats with his doctors, family members and friends and fellow cricketers. Many of them, including Yuvraj himself, broke down while giving the interviews. All of this was shown as is in the documentary which is why every viewer empathised with this amazing story.

In sharp contrast to the Song and Dance Reality Shows that make up most of the Branded Content on TV, our 3 part documentary - Zindagi Abhi Baaki hai or Life Isn't Over Yet- was an inspirational real life story of a dashing young cricketer who was diagnosed with cancer, made a miraculous recovery and was selected to play for India again. People sat glued to their TV sets on 3 consecutive Sunday mornings, enthralled by the journey of Yuvraj Singh from the jaws of death back to glory again.

The documentary ran on 3 consecutive Sundays on the TV Channel Colors - a general entertainment channel which normally runs highly popular family soap operas. But even among these popular shows our documentary had high viewership figures. The program's reach was 734000. The Birla TV commercial which ran on the program had high GRP's of 5.12. However, the most important result of this documentary cannot be quantified. The story gave hope to hundreds, and to date Yuvraj Singh gets stories from ordinary people in India who tell him how his story as seen in 'Zindagi Abhi Baaki Hai' inspired them to fight back from a low point in their life.