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As I entered my cousin’s flat on the 20th floor a stunning view of the sky greeted me. There were various shades of black and grey. Some clouds looked laid-back. Some were embryonic. Others were very disturbed. They flashed lights. It was pouring. I walked towards the sofa that had the best view of the rain and the sky. People inside the flat were oblivious of the scene outside. My niece and her GeNext friends were playing a game.

Much as I tried to enjoy the monsoon sky over the city it was impossible to ignore the game being played. It was my niece’s turn. She was narrating — there is this man on a two-wheeler who drives out of town and reaches a spot which is very much like the Gabbar den in Sholay. He parks the vehicle and sits on the pillion. He eats peanuts and shouts, “E Gabbar!” He dares the dacoit to come out and face him.

My niece started a stopwatch. The rest broke into chatter. Someone said Coke, others laughed. Someone said State Bank, everyone paused. I realised the story was of a television ad. And the game was about identifying the brand. Nobody could recall that this was an ad for Sahara Insurance. So my niece won 20 points.

The game continued. Someone narrated the lovely exchange between a wife and her husband about signing an insurance form. The husband asks her if she will be able to live without him and what will she do with all the money after he is gone. She answers no and then mocks him by saying she will remarry and go on a world trip. She then explains the logic — less uncertainty, less tension, longer life. The ad ends with the wife telling her husband “Jeetey raho”. I remembered this ICICI Prudential Life Insurance ad.

The next contestant described the wife looking for Sanju ad. A sweet little one opined — Sanju is better off dead — he is so sloppy. Another insurance ad.

It is then that I realised that, of late, there has been a whole lot of insurance ads on television. With the stock market in doldrums insurance has the potential to become the crowd favourite. That must have been the bait for insurance companies to occupy ad space.

There is a lot of merit in using advertising to sell insurance. The feeling of providing security for his family is what the insurer really consumes. The return is more perceptual than financial. Obviously advertising can play a huge role.

For a start, on a sunny day none of us think of clouds and rain. Add to that our comfort zones — bad things happen occasionally and only to others. So advertising has to first sell the need to keep a flashlight in the car much before the flat tyre actually happens on your way back from a late night party. Most of the current insurance advertising is doing just that.

That, however, is only half the battle. An individual brand has to provide a unique reason why a consumer should buy it. For a service like insurance tangible product differentiations are often not possible due to regulations. Advertising thus needs to create an irrational bias in the mind of the potential insurer. That is a tough ask. That possibly could explain why the ads convince us why we should insure ourselves but none succeed in telling us why we should do it with them in particular.

Brand choice in any product arena is like a penalty shootout. There can be no ties. It is a pity that despite the crores they are spending on ads, the insurance brands are just saving the goal. No one is trying to win the match.