The demise of the telegram was also the catalyst for a brilliant campaign idea for Birla Sun Life Insurance. Making the most of the end of an era for the Indian Telegram Service, which discontinued the telegram after 163 years, DDB Mudra Max cenceptualised a campaign called ‘The Last Telegram’ for Birla Sun Life.



The last day of the telegram, a team of 15 people from the agency went to the Telegram Office in Mumbai and from 9 AM till 10.30 PM wrote out individual telegrams to prospective clients who had shown interest in Birla Sun Life Retirement Plans. Around 5,000 telegrams were sent, including the last telegram sent from Mumbai, thereby creating a record of sorts.



The telegram read: “The Telegram retires today. With no plans for the future. Do you have a plan for your future? – Retirement Solutions from Birla Sun Life Insurance.”



The idea proved popular and quickly landed up as Facebook status messages and tweets.



The idea was very simple: the telegram retiring was a historic occasion and an emotional moment. It was an opportunity to remind people the importance of having a plan for the future. The agency identified 5,000 people who had shown interest in Birla Sun Life’s Retirement Plans, but who had later forgotten about it. The agency realised that people were only bothered about the discontinuation of the telegram after the news broke some months back, which is akin to people’s behaviour of taking things for granted. Things like money and a job. This was the insight behind the ‘The Last Telegram’ campaign.



Birla Sun Life expects a lot more conversations and a few well-planned retirements once the telegrams have reached these recipients.



“We used the opportunity and the circumstances to show how things can change in the future if we don’t have a proper plan. It was logistically extremely difficult since we had to write them out individually, count the number of words, not to mention anything about the number of people who had come there on the last day to become a part of history,” said Pratap Bose, Chief Operating Officer, DDB Mudra Group.



Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer, Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group, who incidentally was the person the last telegram was addressed to, said, “With the advent of SMS, Whatsapp and 1 paisa calling, the telegram died an untimely death. We plan a lot of things in our communications calendar. But this was out of our sphere of sight. Hats off to the agency that could capture the opportunity which complemented the brand so well.”



Kakar, whose father used to receive telegrams daily during his childhood, plans to keep his last telegram framed – both because it brings back fond memories and because it was “humbling to receive it from the agency as a token”.