Drive Like A Lady 2023: Real Women Drivers, Not Actors, Telling Their Own Stories
Zurich Kotak General Insurance's own claims data showed women were safer drivers, yet stereotypes persisted. For the 2023 edition of Drive Like A Lady, ibs Fulcro brought real women who broke those stereotypes to the forefront, backed by an industry-first preferential insurance price for women.
At a glance
Client: Zurich Kotak General Insurance (Insurance)
Problem: Zurich Kotak General Insurance's own claims data proved women were safer drivers, but the persistent industry stereotype still shaped pricing and perception.
Solution: The 2023 edition of Drive Like A Lady, featuring real women drivers, not actors, backed by an industry-first preferential insurance price for women.
Result: Video views: 10M
ibs Fulcro's role: Brand Campaign
The Marketing Challenge
Women are often assumed to be erratic, inconsistent, and slower drivers compared to men. When Zurich Kotak General Insurance analysed its own claims data, the ratio of motor insurance claims was actually the same between male and female policyholders. But the data revealed something the stereotype missed entirely: women had fewer severe accidents, making them measurably safer drivers overall.
Despite that evidence, stereotypes against women drivers continued to hold them back on Indian roads, leaving real scope for a campaign to promote genuine gender parity behind the wheel.
The Objective
Zurich Kotak General Insurance wanted to get more women driving and push toward genuine gender parity on the road. The brief explicitly wasn't for another one-off campaign, it was for a real, ongoing initiative that could build from strength to strength each year and inspire more women to take the wheel.
The Strategy: Show, Don't Tell
The 2023 edition was built around a genuine behavioural shift, not just a message. Research consistently shows that 'show rather than tell' is a far more effective way to get people to take action they'd previously assumed was impossible for them. So ibs Fulcro set out to find real, inspiring stories of women drivers who had already broken the stereotype themselves.
The campaign featured real women, not actors, including V. Saritha, India's first woman DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) driver, and Shanno Begum, Delhi's first woman driving instructor. Critically, the campaign didn't stop at recreating their stories dramatically; it brought the actual women themselves to the forefront of the campaign.
A detail that made the storytelling more than just inspirational content: one of the campaign's dramatised films carried the line “Apni Chuppi Tod, Bas Chal Padi Woh” (“Break your silence, she just got going”), explicitly labelled on screen as “Based on true events.” The campaign wasn't inventing hardship for emotional effect, it was giving a real, difficult story a wider audience than it would otherwise have reached.
Taking It On Ground
To extend the campaign's impact beyond video views, Zurich Kotak General Insurance took Drive Like A Lady on ground, including a partnership with Azad Foundation, an organisation working directly with women to build economic independence through driving and related livelihoods. Branded activation vehicles carrying the campaign's stories and hashtag were driven publicly, extending the campaign into a physical, visible presence rather than a purely digital one.
Backing the Message With a Real Commercial Offer
While the real stories worked to inspire women to drive, Zurich Kotak General Insurance backed that inspiration with a concrete incentive: an industry-first preferential pricing structure on motor insurance premiums specifically for women, turning the campaign's message, that women are genuinely safer drivers, into an actual product benefit rather than a claim left unsupported.
The Results
Drive Like A Lady 2023 generated 10 million video views and ₹3 million in earned media value, with 4 million in overall engagement across the campaign. The campaign also drove a 12% increase in policies issued to women, a direct commercial outcome showing the preferential pricing and storytelling worked together, not just as brand awareness, but as an actual driver of new business.
Why this is the number that validates the whole strategy. Video views and engagement measure attention. A 12% increase in actual policies issued to women measures something harder to earn: real people changing a real purchasing decision, in a category, insurance, where trust and perceived risk directly determine price. That shift only happens if the underlying claim, that women are genuinely safer drivers, was both true and communicated convincingly enough to be believed.
Why This Matters Beyond One Campaign
The pattern worth taking from Drive Like A Lady 2023 is the discipline of backing a stereotype-breaking claim with three reinforcing layers at once: real data proving the claim, real people whose lived experience embodies it, and a real product benefit that only makes commercial sense if the claim is actually true. Any one of those alone is a message. Together, they're a case a sceptical audience can't easily dismiss.
Frequently asked questions
The 2023 annual edition of Zurich Kotak General Insurance's Women's Day campaign, built by ibs Fulcro, featuring real women who broke driving-related stereotypes, backed by an industry-first preferential motor insurance pricing structure for women.
Zurich Kotak General Insurance's own claims data showed the ratio of motor insurance claims was the same between men and women, but women had fewer severe accidents, making them measurably safer drivers despite common stereotypes suggesting otherwise.
The campaign featured real women who broke stereotypes, including V. Saritha, India's first woman DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) driver, and Shanno Begum, Delhi's first woman driving instructor, brought to the forefront of the campaign rather than represented only through dramatised recreations.
Zurich Kotak General Insurance partnered with Azad Foundation, an organisation working with women to build economic independence through driving and related livelihoods, as part of taking the Drive Like A Lady campaign on ground beyond digital content alone.
An industry-first preferential pricing structure on motor insurance premiums specifically for women, giving the campaign's core message, that women are safer drivers, a concrete product benefit rather than just a brand claim.
The campaign generated 10 million video views, ₹3 million in earned media value, and 4 million in overall engagement, alongside a 12% increase in policies issued to women.