From Retire to Reinvent: Kotak Life’s new campaign pushes Indians to reimagine retirement as a purpose-led next chapter
Ashish Nair, CMO and Head of Customer Value Management & Health Tech at Kotak Life says cultural attitudes toward aging have transformed, calls for sharper planning amid rising longevity, lack of social security, high digital focus and evolving media approach.
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In an interview with Storyboard18, Ashish Nair, CMO and Head of Customer Value Management & Health Tech at Kotak Life, said the insight behind the new "It’s Time to Reinvent Retirement" campaign comes from a sharp cultural shift in how Indians perceive aging and retirement.
He noted that while India is still referred to as a young nation, the senior population is expanding rapidly, from 13–14 crore today to an estimated 23 crore in the next decade, yet the country lacks a formal social security structure.
“The gap between what people save and what they need will hit $85 trillion by 2050. If we don’t wake up to retirement planning, we will have a country with aging citizens who are not financially secure,” he said. This reality, combined with insights from an ethnographic study, showed that the very word retirement now triggers rejection among people in their 40s who feel vitality, not slowdown.
“The word wasn’t fitting well, what resonated strongly was reinvention,” Nair explained, underscoring that the campaign inspires Indians to pursue purpose, rediscover passions and prepare early for a financially confident second act.
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Inspired by the spirit of a new India that refuses to slow down, the campaign narrative transcends the traditional notion of retirement as a phase to slow down. Instead, it showcases retirement as a time to pursue passions, reignite forgotten dreams and embrace life’s next chapter with confidence and purpose. The narrative is brought to life through a film that nudges Indians who will be retiring in the next decade to plan early, so they can pursue passions, reignite forgotten dreams and embrace life’s next chapter with financial freedom.
Beyond the creative narrative, Nair outlined Kotak Life’s broader brand strategy, including its digital-first media approach, guarded influencer partnerships, preference for long-term agency relationships and increasing investment in AI-led personalization.
He highlighted that digital accounts for 65–70% of marketing spends, supported by marquee properties like KBC, Indian Idol and RCB.
On evolving agency engagement, he emphasized that meaningful brand building requires partners who grow with the brand and deeply understand a heavily regulated category.
Discussing technology adoption, Nair highlighted how AI/ML is driving 30–35% efficiency improvements across processes like cross-sell, lead management and customer experience.
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Looking ahead to BFSI marketing in 2026, he expects GenAI-powered creativity, hyper-personalized experiences and sharper insight-driven content to dominate, with a balance between brand building and short-term revenue outcomes.
Edited excerpts:
Walk us through your latest campaign and the objective behind the same?
As a life insurance company, there are two key areas we operate in — one is if one lives too short, and the other is if one lives long. When it comes to living too short, we have term insurance plans so loved ones are financially protected. Living long is where annuity and retirement solutions come in, where money saved today ensures a steady income well into your retirement.
If you see the macroeconomic situation, while India is considered a young country with an average age of 28–29, there is also a huge population moving into the senior citizen category. Today it’s around 13–14 crore; in the next ten years it will reach around 23 crore. That’s a significant part of our population.
There is no formal social security structure in India. And if you see the amount people save versus what they actually need, there is a study that says the gap will reach around $85 trillion by 2050. Which means if people do not wake up to the need to plan for retirement, we will have a country where many aging people are not financially secure to manage increasing longevity.
So that is the real situation. And that means brands like us, operating in this category, have to take up the mantle to let people know and encourage them to take the right steps. That becomes the genesis and the need for what we are doing now.
How do you plan to shift the narrative of 'retirement'- from security to significance and from obligation to opportunity through the latest campaign?
Retirement is not a new narrative — people have spoken about it for a long time. The question now is what different can we say that will make people act? Culture has changed in the last 10–15 years; Indians think differently today.
Last year, when we launched the term insurance culture study, we did a similar ethnographic study this time for retirement. We went deep to understand what people think when they’re nearing retirement. One strong insight that came out is that the word ‘retirement’ is getting rejected a lot. It creates a connotation of slowdown and lack of purpose, which they don’t feel at this point. They still feel vitality, and for them, becoming old is 70+. So the word didn’t gel well.
We dug further to understand what they really want to do. The word we are hinging this campaign on is Reinvent — from retire to reinvent, from lack of purpose to leading with purpose or finding purpose. We are hinging the whole campaign on reinvention in this phase of life.
How long was this in planning, and will there be more legs to the campaign?
Our brand ambassador is Rajkummar Rao, and we have used him in this campaign. Like Virasaat last year, this is a thought we will stick with and it will have multiple legs.
Our core TG is male or female in their mid-40s — this is when the thought of planning retirement hits. At this stage, most are settled: loans mostly paid off, children independent, career stable, income grown. While everything is going well, there is always the sense of “what more can I do?” — time and mindspace opens up.
This is where reinvention fits best. People want to define their future differently — reconnecting with friends, travelling, starting consultancy, turning passions like music into something meaningful, or simply slowing down with purpose. So we are targeting these different mindsets.
We partnered with Wonderlab, our agency of record. They have contributed meaningfully. Our media agency is Dentsu.
How do you plan to distribute the campaign? Talk to us about your media approach.
We are largely a digital-first brand because digital allows for sharper targeting across varied audiences — Gen Z, millennials, young seniors, retirees. Majority of our money is parked in digital. In addition, we associate with brand properties like KBC, Indian Idol, RCB, etc., which help build brand love and further our narrative.
Traditional media definitely holds significance depending on the campaign. For Virasaat, Indian Idol helped push the message. For this campaign, we are evaluating integrations — KBC is ongoing, RCB is coming up.
In general, digital is at the forefront. With the media mix getting fragmented — digital, connected TV, linear TV — digital plus connected is getting most of the mindshare.
We have a fixed budget and a floating budget. The fixed budget supports always-on activity — social media, influencer programs, creative content. The floating budget is for special properties. For instance, KBC-Virasaat was not originally planned but we invested extra because it fit very strongly. This year we also celebrated 25 years, so we allocated floating budget there.
The floating budget could be 50–60% of the regular budget depending on opportunities. Some years we may have 2–3 big integrations, other years only one.
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Digital would be around 65–70% currently. Going forward, we will continue to double down on digital — it is the premier medium. Radio we do not consider.
What is your approach when collaborating with influencers?
When it comes to influencers, it could be a double-edged sword. While today it’s really important to partner with influencers, you’re going beyond certainty, and many decisions are influenced by these people. The opinion of influencers, especially for some cohorts, holds a lot of value. So it’s definitely something you cannot avoid.
What you can put is guardrails. It is like the world of AI — you have to be very clear that your guardrails are in place. Same way with influencers also, we have guardrails.
We look at people who have worked with us in the past. We look at people who have not said anything negative about the brand or the group, or been associated with any wrong kind of thing, or any religious or political affiliation. Those are the kind of things we stay away from.
We also look at the engagement rate: are these people ready to promote our content, will they keep it pinned on their pages or part of their story? There are a lot of placement criteria that we put. We also check if they have all the certifications from ASCI to go and say what they need to say. All considerations are put.
We’ve put a maker-checker system. While the marketing team selects and looks at the criteria, we also have the risk team within the company who signs off. They see from an unbiased way. By this we try and control some of the wrong things that could happen if the right checks are not understood.
For influencers, we work with multiple agencies.
With disruptions in advertising and agency structures, what works better — long-term agency relationships or project-based?
Today there is a lot of content out there and every consumer is thrown with a lot of content from brands they want to engage with to categories like life insurance where people don’t actively want to engage.
What will help engagement is relevance of content — and that happens when you have the right strategy in place. Content creation has become easy. People can self-make and put out content. But what really creates an impression is being very clear on what kind of brand you’re building, short term and long term.
We come from a school where the brand positioning has to be very clear. You need strong research and insights. Otherwise you will create generic work. When you work like this, you have to work with a partner who grows with you. If you keep changing partners, it becomes transactional.
Our category is not easy to understand. It’s heavily regulated. You cannot be casual because you are dealing with money and serious decisions. So you need partners who understand and appreciate that and are willing to partner with you over time.
For core jobs like media or creative, I look at agencies we can partner with over a period of time. But with new-age tech like GenAI or influencers where there are no traditionally established thought processes, there is experimentation. For these you have tactical partners. So it’s defined by the job, not by a partner decision.
With consolidations, acquisitions, layoffs and restructuring in agency networks, does it disrupt your trust?
We know these agencies were primed for these changes. At times we steer clear knowingly because we know there is turmoil within. When we choose a partner, these are anyway criteria, although you can never be 100% sure. But like in the influencer program, if you put your guardrails in place, most times it will take you through.
What KPIs do you look at for campaign success?
We look at brand health — awareness, consideration, ad diagnostics. We look at our social media ranking. On Meta, we are the number one brand in life insurance. On LinkedIn, most months we come number one. CMS brand scores have also shifted significantly in the past three years with one of the least spends on media.
For influencers, we now look at tougher metrics — SEO impact, website visits, engagement. We track brand health matrices and NPS. Many services we popularized on social media have helped shift NPS.
In FY24 we were joint sixth. In FY25 we came joint third — the biggest movement in the life insurance space.
How has AI/ML impacted your marketing strategy or budgets?
Most things on AI/ML are in POC stage. A recent BCG report said 90% companies say they are dabbling, but only 7% have scaled successfully globally. In India, 70% are not technologically or culturally ready.
Most POCs show improvement of 30–35% and cost reduction of 10–15%. For us, TAT has improved from a two-day cycle to almost a one-day cycle. In terms of cost, 10–15%, because models are learning and we have to keep both engines on.
In my portfolio, I look at marketing, healthtech and CBM. AI/ML has maximum use cases in cross-sell and upsell. We use ML on 200 parameters to predict next best action or product. We personalize through mailers and WhatsApp. Once interest is generated, AI voice calling schedules appointments.
We have created a one-view system for sales with customer details, campaign history, etc. We have AI-based role plays for advisors, an expert-on-call model, and AI prompts for call center support. We are using machine learning, automation and AI in conjunction to deliver value.
Will you scale investment in AI going forward?
This decision is a boardroom decision. As an organization, we need to decide which 1-2 domains to go deep in. Whether cross-sell, claims, underwriting or sales enablement — funding is organization-led.
Our intent is 100%. Technologically and culturally it’s a work in progress. It’s an evolving journey.
What are the major trends you forecast for BFSI advertising in 2026?
First, GenAI — it will have a major role, from creative making to creating experiences. Second, customer experiences — AI-enabled hyper-personalization, omnichannel experiences. Third, balance of long-term brand building and short-term revenue. Marketing cannot be either-or.
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Fourth, emphasis on consumer insights because of the volume of content. If you don’t go deep, engagement will drop. Fifth, media complexity — fragmentation, CTV prominence. Media is underrated and not spoken about enough.
Traditional will still hold significance depending on what you need to do. It has to be audience-first.
