MAM
Birla Sun Life Insurance appoints Taproot India as its creative agency
MUMBAI: Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI), the insurance arm of Aditya Birla Financial Services Group, announced the appointment of Taproot India as it creative partner.
Birla Sun Life Insurance had invited four agencies to share their strategy and creative recommendations, namely, McCann Erickson, JWT India, Taproot India and Scarecrow. The incumbent agency is JWT India and has partnered BSLI for over five years.
Speaking on the appointment, Aditya Birla Group CMO financial services Ajay Kakar said, “Today, the Life insurance industry is at an inflection point in India. There is an opportunity for us to redefine the role that this industry can play in the life of mass India. At Birla Sun Life Insurance, we remain committed to our chosen strategy to provoke mass India to self-realise the importance of life insurance in their lives, as a source of certainty in a rather uncertain world. With Taproot India, we have found an agency that not only guide and partner with us in the creative expression of our brand, but more importantly, also help us strategise for the way forward.”
Taproot India co-founder and chief creative officer Agnello Dias said, “Birla Sun Life insurance, as a brand, is very passionate about its business and operates with great clarity, sharp insights and a strong point of view. As its communication partner, we look forward to making the brand even more relevant to consumers than it is.”
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“Birla Sun Life Insurance has done some brave work in the past in the insurance category. It is seen as a leader and we are very excited to work with the brand. Birla Sun Life insurance will also add a different dimension to the Taproot portfolio,” said Taproot India co-founder and chief creative officer Santosh Padhi.
“Despite the presence of many players in this category, a strong brand with a clear agenda will always have the opportunity to create interesting brand conversations. We are more than delighted to partner Birla Sun Life Insurance in its journey ahead,” added Taproot India CEO Umesh Shrikhande.
AD Agencies
Fevicol releases its last ad campaign by the late Piyush Pandey
The adhesive brand’s last campaign by the late advertising legend Piyush Pandey turns an everyday Indian obsession into a quietly powerful metaphor
MUMBAI: Fevicol has never needed much of a plot. A sticky bond, a wry observation, a truth that every Indian instantly recognises — that has always been enough. “Kursi Pe Nazar,” the brand’s latest television commercial, is no different. And yet it carries a weight that no previous Fevicol film has had to bear: it is the last one its creator, the advertising legend Piyush Pandey, will ever make.
The film, released on Tuesday by Pidilite Industries, fixes its gaze on the kursi — the chair — and what it means in Indian life. Not just as a piece of furniture, but as a currency of ambition, a vessel of authority, and a source of quiet social drama that plays out in every home, office and institution across the country. Who sits in the chair, who waits for it, and who eyes it hungrily from across the room: the film transforms this sharply observed cultural truth into a narrative that is, in the best Fevicol tradition, funny, warm and instantly familiar.
The campaign was Pandey’s idea. He discussed it in detail with the team before his death, but did not live to see it shot. Prasoon Pandey, director at Corcoise Films who helmed the commercial, said the team needed five months to find its footing before they felt ready to shoot. “This was the toughest film ever for all of us,” he said. “It was Piyush’s idea, magical as always.”
The emotional weight of that responsibility was not lost on the team at Ogilvy India, which created the campaign. Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha, group chief creative officers at Ogilvy India, described the process as “a pilgrimage of sorts, on the path that Piyush created not just for Ogilvy, but for our entire profession.”
Sudhanshu Vats, managing director of Pidilite Industries, said the film was rooted in a distinctly Indian insight. “The ‘kursi’ symbolises aspiration, transition, and ambition,” he said. “Piyush Pandey had an extraordinary ability to elevate such everyday observations into iconic storytelling for Fevicol. This film carries that legacy forward.”
That legacy is considerable. Over several decades, Pandey’s partnership with Fevicol produced some of the most beloved advertising in Indian history, building the brand into something rare: a household name that people actively enjoy watching sell to them.
“Kursi Pe Nazar” does not try to be a tribute. It simply tries to be a great Fevicol film. By most measures, it succeeds — which is, in the end, the most fitting send-off of all.
