financial services

Esurance Launches 90-Second Bollywood Spot

Esurance Bollywood Music Video

Esurance is launching a 90-second Bollywood-inspired music video spot that will run through October exclusively on IFC during the network's "Wake Up To Bollywood" film block on Sunday mornings.

"We are hoping to incorporate this Bollywood music video spot into our national media schedule after its run on IFC," says Melissa Chapman, Esurance's brand and public relations manager. "Ideally, we would love to have it air across some music networks where it makes sense, such as VH-1 or MTV. However, we have no definitive schedule in place as of yet."

The spot includes Nikita Patel, the winner of Esurance Bollywood Casting Call Contest, which concluded in July. Participants visited http://www.esurance.com/Bollywood and submitted videos of re-enactments of their favorite Bollywood movie scenes for a chance to be animated into an Esurance music video.

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Patel stars in the spot along with Esurance's animated icon, Erin Esurance. It was created by the San Francisco-based online auto insurance company's longtime animation partner, Special Agent Productions. An homage to the great tradition of Indian filmmaking, the spot features Bollywood-style dancing, vibrant costumes, and exotic settings.

IFC was extremely flexible in letting Esurance go with the longer format for this music video spot, Chapman says.

"IFC was appealing to us from the get-go in relation to this Bollywood sponsorship," Chapman tells Marketing Daily. "Since IFC does not run traditional advertising, this was a great opportunity for us to engage with Bollywood viewers by associating our brand with bringing Bollywood films to the U.S. for the first time."

To promote the long-form video, Esurance is running banner ads on the IFC network pushing to the microsite, where visitors can view the video as well as other video submissions from the Bollywood Casting Call Contest.

"With the popularity of 'Slum Dog Millionaire,' we have been very interested in doing something fun and innovative with the Bollywood genre," Chapman says.

Esurance is not the only insurance company to jump on the Bollywood bandwagon. State Farm is running a Bollywood Karaoke contest.

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