Open or Close ?

Let me again comment on the Indian telecom industry and its giants, who have a common feature called adaptibilty.

When a brand is being built, marketers use offensive strategies while they use defensive tactics to maintain their brands. Indian Telecom mammoths are now using defensive strategies to maintain their brand, and thereby retain their customer base. The major components of defensive branding strategies are adaptability, protectibility and transferability, which are being well used by players like Airtel, who have adapted the brand as per the heinous context of global meltdown.

Airtel has recently come up with its new ad campaign called "Anna and her special 5". Click here to view the commercial.

The commercial shows the synergy between Anna and her group of five friends, but there is no information on the significance of the figure 5 in the product offering. In the end of all TVCs of the campaign, there has been a mention of a toll free number for more information on the deal.

The ads are really cute and adorable with a special component which is called need for closure. When consumers are exposed to any marketing stimulus like a TVC, they tend to form perceptions, which may be favorable or unfavorable. In the process of organization of perceptions, marketers play a major role in moulding the consumer perceptions which are favorable for the brand.

Humans, by default have a tendency to organize their thoughts and perceptions and form a complete picture for every incoming stimulus. As such, they need a beginning, content or body for the perceptual image and then the closure.

In the new Airtel campaign of special 5, there is a beginning with introduction of the characters of the commercial as Anna and her friends and also the content which are interactions amongst friends, but there is no closure as there is lack of explanation on the special five offer, though there is a hint on lower call rates. This need for closure is addressed by giving a toll free contact number where customers can get the details of the offer.

Now, as the consumers have an urge to closure for the perceptual picture formed by the stimulus, TVC in the contemporary context, and as such, customers are compelled to dial to the customer contact centre, which would serve as a point of contact for the company to sell the new offering.

Well, most of the commercials and campaigns fail due to lack of conceptual support in managing the marketing mix, but Airtel has really lived up to the need of the hour.

Break Through the Clutter

I have been writing a lot on telecom players. Here is another piece of applause for this highly dyanamic, yet positively competitive industry. As the competition is immense, the organizations in the telecom industry are making constant efforts to beat the rest.

Here comes Airtel with an adorable TV commercial featuring a cute kid trying to protect her boat from the rain, unabling which she is helped by her five friends. Click here to view the commercial.

The TVC is sweet and adorable, but the only problem with the TVC has been the slight resemblance of the child model with the one used in Vodafone TVC. There have been reviews from audience that in the midst of the ad, they were expecting the entry of the famous Vodafone pug.

This erronoeus part of the Airtel TVC can be attributed to the effort to break through the clutter. Organizations have lately been using children in the commercial to enhance the likeability and memorability components of the commercial.

Well, we really can't blame Airtel for using the kid resembling the one in Vodafone commercial and I really applaud Airtel for coming up with such an adorable ad campaign.

Three cheers!!!

Value Added Services or only Value ?

The telecom services providers are pondering over ways to enhance sales and market share in the Indian market with intense competition. The number of players is increasing with two new players namely Virgin and Aircel. How does the players in this industry strategize so as to attain their objectives?

These companies are resorting to various means in order to gain market share. Vodafone came up with the much hyped Zoozoo campaign while Idea came up with a new idea during the IPL season 2 (Click here for more details). All these companies are now trying to sell their Value Added Services or VAS.

Well, I really don't think that it's a great strategy to promote VAS now, when the world economy is hit by recession. The common people are struggling to avert receiving pink slips. Analysts are working hard to speculate the after math of recession. As such, there is a lot of uncertainity around and the entire financial structure of the country isn't in great health.

As such, who cares about getting beauty tips or cricket scores? The masses now want to stay connected in the cheapest possible rates with absolutely no inclination towards any kind of value added services. They rather want value for money.

In this context, the attempts of several players is laudable. Airtel, which is positioned around knitting relationships, lowered its STD tariffs some time back. Virgin mobile, which is the fastest growing mobile operator has further lowered the STD and local call rates to 50paise per minute.

Well, I think revising the pricing strtegies is the need of the hour and not VAS. Let us see how these VAS providers and promoters fare against those who could feel the pulse of customers based on heinous market scenario.

Recession isn't that bad

When the recession has hit the world heinously, marketers have found a way to beat its effect. They have devised ways to capitalize on it.

I am talking about the new Airtel TVCs, featuring R. Madhavan and Vidya Balan. The commercials emphasize on relationships and not money, whether it is recession or not. Click here to see the commercial. 

The company has always had a positioning of fostering relations. Even now, the positioning is same as ever, but the theme has been altered and fabricated around recession. Here, company also communicates its lowering of tariffs to sustain the product's value proposition, complementing the brand image.

As such, marketers do find a way to find positives in negatives. The campaign seems to be impressive. Almost all of  marketing mix elements have been altered including price, promotion and product (inclusion of M-commerce). Lets see how sales complement this new strategy with modified marketing mix.

Brand Sense 2

Marketers don't rely only on visuals and graphics to connect with the consumers. They use sound and audio too, and that is to link the brands with the sense of hearing of consumers.

Do you remember the audio which Airtel capitalised on for the purpose of brand building? It is a memorable sound track composed by the Indian Mozart, Mr. A. R. Rahman. This audio is an Airtel patent, which actually helped the brand in registering in consumers' minds as audio is a great way to connect to human brain. Click here to listen to the audio.

Similarly, Harley Davidson patented the sound which is supposedly produced while starting the bike. Click here to view the related commercial.

All these efforts are directed to link the brands to a sense of consumers, that is, the hearing sense and therby have a unique brand identity and higher brand equity.

Needle is Pointing towards you...

The basics of marketing involve STP (Segmenting, Targeting & Positioning). Out of these building blocks, positioning is at the heart of any marketing strategy. The best way to communicate your positioning to customers is advertising.

Advertising takes many forms and has a lot of dimensions. One such dimension is Needledrop. Linda Scott describes it as “An occupational term common to advertising agencies and the music industry. It refers to music that is prefabricated, multipurpose, and highly conventional. It is, in that sense, the musical equivalent of stock photos, clip art, or canned copy. It is dropped into a commercial or film when a particular normative effect is desired. ”

The term may appear new to you, but I am sure the meaning is familiar. Let me exemplify the concept. Do you recall any brand that you could relate to a specific tune? I hope you can recollect Airtel advertisement featuring A.R.Rahman and his beautiful composition that is more of secondary brand association for Airtel. 

This is a classic example of needlepoint. I would link needpoint to another great concept in my upcoming posts.