The document discusses advertising trends in the Indian telecom industry from the initial launch of mobile services to more recent developments. It notes that early mobile advertising positioned phones as lifestyle products for the wealthy few. Airtel later hired Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador and used his image widely. Over time, telecom companies introduced various targeted plans and value-added services to attract different customer segments as competition increased. Airtel's recruitment of A.R. Rahman as its celebrity endorser produced a highly popular ringtone that spread even among customers of other carriers, unintentionally promoting the Airtel brand beyond its own subscriber base.
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The document discusses advertising trends in the Indian telecom industry from the initial launch of mobile services to more recent developments. It notes that early mobile advertising positioned phones as lifestyle products for the wealthy few. Airtel later hired Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador and used his image widely. Over time, telecom companies introduced various targeted plans and value-added services to attract different customer segments as competition increased. Airtel's recruitment of A.R. Rahman as its celebrity endorser produced a highly popular ringtone that spread even among customers of other carriers, unintentionally promoting the Airtel brand beyond its own subscriber base.
The document discusses advertising trends in the Indian telecom industry from the initial launch of mobile services to more recent developments. It notes that early mobile advertising positioned phones as lifestyle products for the wealthy few. Airtel later hired Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador and used his image widely. Over time, telecom companies introduced various targeted plans and value-added services to attract different customer segments as competition increased. Airtel's recruitment of A.R. Rahman as its celebrity endorser produced a highly popular ringtone that spread even among customers of other carriers, unintentionally promoting the Airtel brand beyond its own subscriber base.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
The document discusses advertising trends in the Indian telecom industry from the initial launch of mobile services to more recent developments. It notes that early mobile advertising positioned phones as lifestyle products for the wealthy few. Airtel later hired Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador and used his image widely. Over time, telecom companies introduced various targeted plans and value-added services to attract different customer segments as competition increased. Airtel's recruitment of A.R. Rahman as its celebrity endorser produced a highly popular ringtone that spread even among customers of other carriers, unintentionally promoting the Airtel brand beyond its own subscriber base.
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Advertising Trends in Indian Telecom
The way telecom firms advertise, gives an approximate idea about the telecom trends. I would try to uncover some of them, which come to my mind. At the initial launch of the mobile services, they were advertised as lifestyle products. The message that sought to be conveyed was that if you have a mobile phone, you have arrived in life. A few well-healed people could afford the high call rates at that time. It was in no way for the masses. I am sure that the mobile companies made a large profit out of it. Perhaps for the first time, Indians were exposed to concepts alien to them: Customer Care Support. It saw a booming of the ancillary services and fresh graduates, stunted in mental development though, came out in droves for the well-paid jobs.
Airtel then sought the services of Sachin Tendulkar. He was the brand ambassador and saw his earnings sharply increasing. I saw his picture everywhere exhorting me buy the mobile prepaid card. After the initial publicity passed away, A.R. Rahman gave his now famous tune. All the other companies have variously tried other gimmicks to sell their connections.
Advertising trends are reflective of the current scenario in telecom. Airtel
has been advertising its group card labeled as Friends. In fact, until now, the market was treated as homogenous. Over the period, classification has been sought to target the specific customers with specific needs. Airtel took the lead in announcing Senior citizen cards targeted at those above 60. The “Friends card†is for those who wish to restrict themselves to their group with low calling rates and some freemessages.
Airtel introduced its Airtel Live! I guess so have the other operators across board. The voice calls would not yield much as much as revenue as would the value added services. Hence, for the same reason they have introduced value added cards, which would help to downloadring tones and other fancy stuff.
PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY After the liberalization of the Indian Telecom Sector in 1994, the Indian cellular market witnessed a surge in cellular services. By 2005, there were a total of 12 players in the market with the five major players being Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited (Bharti), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Hutchinson-Essar limited (Hutch), Idea Cellular limited (Idea) and Reliance India Mobile (RIM) (Refer Exhibit I). All the players except RIM offered services based on the Global System forMobile (GSM) technology. RIM provided services based on Code DivisionMultiple Access (CDMA) technology as well as GSM. As competition in the telecom arena intensified, service providers took new initiatives to woo customers. Prominent among these were - celebrity endorsements, loyalty rewards, discount coupons, business solutions and talk time schemes. The most important consumer segments in the cellular industry were the youth segment and the business class segment. The youth segment was the largest and fastest growing segment and was therefore targeted most heavily by cellular service providers. Bharti Tele-Ventures adopted celebrity endorsement as its chief promotional strategy. By 2004 it emerged the unprecedented leader commanding the largest market share in the cellular service market. (Refer Exhibit II). Hutch implemented the celebrity endorsement strategy partially, relying primarily on its creative advertising for the promotion of its brand. BSNL, on the other hand, attracted the consumer through its low cost schemes. Being a state owned player, BSNL could cover rural areas, and this helped it increase its subscriber base. Reliance was another player that cashed on its innovative promotional strategies, which included celebrity endorsements and attractive talk time schemes. Idea, relied heavily on its creative media advertising sans celebrities.
RAHMAN TUNE CROSSES AIRTEL’S
EXCLUSIVITY BARRIER October 04, 2002 Cellular service provider AirTel seems to have hit the right note with its new commercial starring musician A R Rahman. The commercial which is currently on air has a beat which also doubles up as a ringtone which is ostensibly available only to AirTel users. But the interesting part is that the ringtone is being flaunted not just by AirTel customers but by customers of rival service providers like BPL, Orange and Dolphin as well! “We did expect the tune to catch up but this has really exceeded our expectations,” admits Bharti Cellular’s chief marketing officer (western region) Pratik Pota. Overall, he explains, it is a great advertising product for AirTel and works like a “walking, talking brand ambassador.” The ringtone which is also the jingle for AirTel’s TV commercial, is proving to be a potent advertising tool for the company. It is not very clear what this means for the other cellular operators. Cellular users have been “forwarding” the tune to one another, which according to Mr Pota, has given AirTel a chance to enter the “mind of the user” irrespective of which service he opts for. “It gives the user a chance to go back to the AirTel product and acts as a strong reminder medium,” he explains. Marketing professionals like Samsika Marketing Consultants’ managing director Jagdeep Kapoor point to the usage of an “audio celebrity” as something that is significant. “The normal practice is to opt for film stars and sportsmen rather than an audio personality” he says. Rivals, though seemingly unfazed by the phenomenon, seem to be doing their own homework on this brand of advertising. While none of them commented on AirTel’s strategy and its impact on their own subscriber base, one advertising professional working with a rival service provider opines that the tune is “transient” and not likely to have any long term impact as a brand building tool. Being the latest entrant in the Mumbai circle, AirTel has had to find ways of cutting through the clutter. Says Mr Kapoor,” AirTel will have try to find ways to attract new customers and convert the existing ones.” Explaining that the usage of an audio celebrity was more “strategic than tactical”, he adds that non-AirTel users will have the AirTel “brand experience” inspite of not using the service. While Mr Pota highlights the fact that the usage of the tune by other operators means “free advertising” for AirTel and the users having a positive disposition towards the product, the nature of reaction from competition remains unclear. “Competition will not do well to adopt a knee jerk reaction and will have to come out with advertising that is well thought out” explains Mr Kapoor. He anticipates a situation where the new entrant (AirTel) will continue to be more aggressive.
