Vodafone 's Advertisement Strategy in India

8/9/2019 Vodafone 's Advertisement Strategy in India

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Business Research

Is the advertisement strategy used by Vodafone in India

successful?

Submitted to Prof. Dilip

Submitted by Hitesh GoyalSheron Prabu

Batch PGPRM-9MBA12 B

Reg. No. BLR 0903071001

BLR 0903031042


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1. IntroductionVodafone is known for its unique advertisement campaign such as pug, happy to help

service and latest released Zoozoo advertisement campaign. The Zoozoos

advertisements were created in South Africa by Ogilvy & Mather, an internationaladvertising, marketing, and public relations agency and Nirvana Films (Bangalore base

company) used some animated characters to make these advertisements. It became so

famous at little time that they made 30 advertisements base on Zoozoo. They spent near

Rs. 30 million to make these advertisements. Now days it is one of the most admirable

advertisements in India for example it has 35000 members on Facebook page which is

increasing rapidly.

2. Company backgroundVodafone is one of the leading global brands and in brand value ranking 2008 and it is

ranked as the 11th largest telecommunication company in the world and 2nd in

Europe. In the same way Vodafone Essar is one of the leading telecommunication service

providers in India. It serves about 35 million customers who are located in different part

of the country. It was during the year 2007, an UK-based Vodafone Group took over

Hutchison Essar in India and renamed as Vodafone Essar. Hutchison Essar was

controlled by Li Ka-Shing who was a Hong Kong billionaire. Vodafone paid $11.1

billion in order to get the 67% stake of Hutchison Essar. The acquisition of Hutchison

Essar in India gave Vodafone an access to enter one of the fastest mobile growing

markets, where the providers add about six million new connections every month. The

company provides prepaid and postpaid connections; the company had the best mobile

service in the country, most creative and an effective advertiser of the year. The company

launched Apple iphone during 2008 to use in their 2G networks. Now the company has

about 53 stores across India. The Company entered into agreement with NTT Do Como to

launch I-mode mobile Internet service in India during 2007 (Capitaline, 2009).

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI): TRAI was established under the

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 enacted on March 28, 1997. The goals


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and objectives of TRAI encourage greater corporation in the telecom sector together with

better quality and affordable prices.( trai.com)

3.

Objectivey To learn how to make a business report

y To learn how to do business research

y Role of advertisements on the buying behaviour of the customer.

y To study the consumers perception about Vodafone advertisement

y To study whom Vodafone is targeting

y Analyze why they changed their advertisement from pug to Zoozoo

y

To recommend Vodafone how to make more effective advertisement strategyy How to do a primary and secondary research to collect data

y How to do a proper sampling, selecting a particular group for the sampling

4. Executive summaryIn this report we have analysis the present scenario of the Indian telecommunication

sector and the main object to make this report is to study the effectiveness and the

response towards the advertisement strategy used by Vodafone in India and otherobjective are clear the concept how to make business report and do business research. To

complete this report we have used the primary data which we have collected by

questioner from sample size of 30 people and interview with senior distributor of

Vodafone and secondary data which we have collected from relevant website, journals

and academic books

5. Literature reviewTelecommunication sector in India:

Telecommunication is an array of technology that sends information over a long distance;

they have such as satellite, mobile, landlines. There are many big domestic as well as

multinational players in Indian telecommunication market like Airtel, Idea, BSNL,

Vodafone and Tata Indicom but the largest market share owned by private companies


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near 85% The total numbers of telephone and mobile subscriber have reach out up to

282.67 million at the end of January 2009 in India .

What is advertising?

Advertising is an important tool that helps to market the product, service and idea by

means of newspaper, magazines, television, internet and they can also be found in play

ground, back of the bus, in stores. It is a communication force which is visible and most

important way of marketing communication. Most of the companies consider

advertisement expenses as the future investment (Kotler & Keller, 2008).

Managing advertisement decision:

Advertisements play a vital role for any type of business whether it is small or large

company but we can say that there are different skills and effort needed for large or

multinational companies. They have to establish separate R&D department for different

country by keeping in mind their demographic, geographic and culture factors. They have

to take decision whether they should establish separate selling and advertisement

department or done by outside advertisement companies (Kotler & Keller, 2008).

Type of advertising:

Product oriented advertising:

In this type of advertisement company advertise their product, idea or service. The main

object of it is to convey the message to consumers about product or service and attract

them to sell or use the product and service.

Image and advocacy advertising:

In this type of advertising company does advertising to make its image among customers.

Company provides information about its employees, profit, infrastructure and share price.

Firstly Vodafone used this advertisement by their Pug advertisement campaign.


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Public service advertising:

Mostly these types of advertisements are done by nonprofit organizations and the

government such as Polio drops, AIDS, consumer protection (Kotler & Keller, 2008).

Advantages and disadvantages of advertisement:

There are a lot of advantages of advertising. Firstly it gives information about the

product, organization and service. It helps large number of people to provide information

in a short period of time. Secondly it creates a brand image among the public, sometime

the slogan line of the product struck in people mind. Advertisement encourages

innovation and the development of a new product it gives the investment and job

opportunities. Last but not the least it helps in increasing the growth of the media 60 % of

magazines revenue, 70% of newspapers revenue comes from advertisement (Kenneth &

Baack, 2007).

However there are some issues which cause for the downfall of the advertisement they

are social and economy issues. In social issue our culture, lifestyle includes sometimes

when the foreign company thought of expanding their business to a new country they

should think of changing the advertisement too. When the advertisement is not according

to the culture there might be a bad thought among people mind. It also increases the

market price of the product. (Onkvisit & John, 2000)

Displaying ads is the most non classified ads which include TV and it could be found on

the news paper, magazines and internet. Vodafone is using displaying ad to create brand

image and to promote their product. They follow national advertising in India which will

be undertaken by the marketer of branded product. In fact it conveys a mass marketing

effort, the goal of national advertising is to inform consumer about a company. (Kotler &Keller, 2008)


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6. MethodologyWe are using questionnaire for collecting primary data and websites, journal for

secondary data. We follow descriptive research methodology to complete this report.

7. SamplingThe sampling technique that chose is simple random sampling. The group that we choose

is students and a Vodafone senior distributor at district level in Haryana. About 144

villages and town comes under him or in other way he provides Vodafone simcards and

service alone to near 144 villages and towns and near 72 salesmen work under him. The

characteristics are stated below.

Target sampling Students, post graduated and Vodafone senior distributor

Target size 30

Qualification pursuing MBA

Gender male, female

Income level < 10,000 rupees

Status single, married

Age 20-30

8. Data sourcesIn this data source we have used both the primary source and secondary sources, in order

to gather primary source we use questionnaire and interview method. And for secondary

source we reviewed journal article and relevant websites.

9. JustificationWe have chosen descriptive research method because we want to know the attitude of the

consumer towards the Vodafone advertisement. We did not choose exploratory research

because our research question was clearly defined.


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For sampling we have chosen simple random sampling because we wanted to get the

feedback from different age group consumer how they feel about Vodafone

advertisement.

We have chosen questionnaire because it is easy to analyze, it is less disturbing

when compared to face to face survey or telephone survey and it is familiar to most

of the people which reduces the nervous among them. Using questionnaire we will

find out how the customer feel about Vodafone advertisement. We wanted to even

know what made the Vodafone to change their advertisement strategy and how was

the business after using the new advertisement, so we have chosen interview

method which allows us to have a direct respond from people who have

telecommunication store and dealer of Vodafone.


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10.Questionnaire1. How many times have you watched Vodafone advertisement in a day?

(a) Never

(b) 1-3 times(c) More than 3 times

2. Which one do you prefer?

(a)Pug (b) Zoozoo

3. What do you think about Vodafone advertisement?

(a) Is it just entertainment (b) does it gave any information about the product

4. Have you ever mentioned Vodafone advertisement to someone?

(a) Yes (b) No

5. How memorable did you find the Vodafone advertisement?

(a) Memorable

(b) Undecided

(c) Not memorable

6. Does the advertisement made you to change your mobile connection?

(a) Yes (b) No

7. Did you find that the advertisement is creative?

(a) creative

(c) Not creative

8. How would you rate this Vodafone advertisement?

(a) Excellent

(b) Fair

(c) Poor


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9. Based on advertisements made by company, would you like to go for connection for

you or your family in future?

a) Yes

b) No

c) Not decided

10. Which telecommunication company has good advertising strategy?

a) Air Tel

b) Vodafone

c) Any other


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11.FindingsPrimary research

In this research we are including the data that we got from questionnaire.

1. How many times have you watched Vodafone advertisement in a day?

2. Which one do you prefer?

7%

33%

60%

never

1-3 times

more than 3 times

37%

63 %

pug

zoozoo


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3. What do you think about Vodafone advertisement?

4. Have you ever mentioned Vodafone advertisement to someone?

27%

73%is it j

st

t

t

inment

d

es it

iveinformation

about t e roduct

70%

30%

yes no


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5. How memorable did you find the Vodafone advertisement?

6. Does the advertisement made you to change your mobile connection?

50%

23%

27%

memo able

unde

ided

not memo

able

60%

40%

yes

no


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7. Did you find that the advertisement is creative?

8. How would you rate this Vodafone advertisement?

93%

7%

creati

e

not creati e

67%

3%

10%

exce

ent

air

poor


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9. Based on advertisements made by company, would you like to go for connection for

you or your family in future?

10. Which telecommunication company has good advertising strategy?

43%

27%

3

%

Yes

No

Not decided

33%

50%

17%

AirTel

Vodafone

Anyot

er


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Secondary research

A period of six months ago Vodafone briefed Ogilvy agency in India to create some

uncommon characters, the starting point was that the character should be simple which

lead to the born of Zoozoo. During the first Indian premier league (IPL) Vodafone have

unveiled the happy to help series. During the second season it has brought a new

character called Zoozoo, which conveys the value added service offering of Vodafone in

their newly released commercial. They made 25 such adds, among them 10 was already

on air. The rest were aimed of release of one per day to sustain till the end of IPL.

The chief marketing officer of Vodafone Mr. Harit Nagpal said that we are getting many

customers but a large number of them dont know the extra service that we offer for

example phone backup. During this second season of IPL we planned to spend four

months worth of marketing money in just one month, so we choose not to just do one or

two add but twenty five ads. Which actually make the viewer feel boring watching the

same add again and again. (Brand report, 2009)

At first there was a dog in hutch campaign it has survived $19 billion buyout. And it

become so popular that peoples started having that breed of dogs called pugs. Now its

the nutty and entirely little men in white called Zoozoo, which is one of the mainbroadcasts of IPL. The company has spent about Rs 250 crore on ads across mediums.

During the first ten days of IPL, the viewers number reached 89 million, its higher

compare to 70 million viewers last year. (Buisnessline, 2009)

Due to Zoozoo advertisement Vodafone has won the glitter box award by PETA (people

for ethical treatment for animals) this award is given to the business that use human

instead of using real animals in their advertisement. Zoozoo became so popular because it

conveys a message without using an animal. Animal used in films are often treated as

more than props according to Anuradha Sawhney who is the shief functionary of PETA.

This Zoozoo replaces the older add of using pug in their advertisement, which actually

made this pug free now. (Business standard, 2009)


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12.Analysis and interpretation

When Hutch started visual advertising, they started with unique campaign compare to

other telecommunication companies such as where Airtels brand ambassadors are

bollywood famous actors and singer like AR Rahman, Madhvan, Saif Ali Khan and

actress Karenna Kapoor, Vidha Balan and in the same way they sponsored cricket players

like Idea cellular does but Hutch used a small child and a pug in a very simple way. In a

short time it made a strong brand image in India with their slogan Wherever you go our

network follows and it increased their sale as well as profit. It also helped them to get

more money from Vodafone at acquiring time. But soon Vodafone stopped the pug

campaign advertisement while it was working well and started with new campaign

Happy to help service which did not work and had negative effect on brand image but

soon they found the way to become again popular among people and regain their market

share by introducing most effective and unique advertisement campaign Zoozoo

campaign.


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When we asked questions and collected data, we found that Zoozoo campaign is the most

effective and successful advertisement strategy used by Vodafone and it helped them to

increased their sales, profit and built strong brand image.

When we asked how many time in a day you watch the Zoozoo advertisement, we got

positive response from them. They told at least 8-10 times in a day especially at night

time when IPL matches were going on. As we know people are passionate about cricket

in India so we found that their strategy was to target those people who like cricket and by

cricket they reached out a vast number of people. They released thirty different

advertisements during IPL-2 and they had contract with Sat-Max to show advertisement

up to 300 seconds in a day in-between an IPL match and they paid 2 lakh Rs. Per minute

and 12 lakh Rs. per minute during final match. Vodafone also was the one of the biggest

sponsors of IPL-2. They promoted their service and made positive brand image between

people. So, consider these all points, we can say that Vodafone used effective

advertisement strategy.

Secondly, when we asked which advertisement do you prefer Pug or Zoozoo: most of

people told they like Zoozoo advertisement because in Pug advertisement campaign

Vodafone main concern was inform people about their network. They never try to inform

consumer about their service, offer and scheme which they provide but in Zoozoo


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advertisement campaign Vodafone inform consumers which type of service they provide,

about talk time value, STD call rates and other services such as GPRS, stock, live cricket

score. By using animated cartoon which behave like human and show them using

services Vodafone try to attract consumers emotionally. Many people switch off from

other mobile services and started using Vodafone. We found that Zoozoo is not a source

of entertainment, they are very effective tools to provide information and increase sale

and make positive brand image.

We had interview also with Vodafone senior distributor in Haryana, Mr. Mahesh Goyal.

He told that we distribute Zoozoo posters and Zoozoo t-shirt to small retail store and to

customers in small villages who buy new sim-card and use Vodafone. In villages we have

met many people who are not so literate, come to store and they do not know the name ofVodafone but by Zoozoo poster they demand for services and use it because they have

seen the advertisement. We have not seen huge change in sale but it helps to sustain

present customers.

13.ConclusionAt last, consider all these points we would like to say that Vodafone is using simple but

unique and effective advertisement strategy compare to other telecommunication

companies in India. Their advertisement strategy in India is totally different from

England and other countries. Where football is famous in England in the same way they

know cricket is considered as religion in India. So they targeted people through huge

advertising during IPL. They use indoor like TV, radio and internet as well as outdoor

sources like posters, pamphlets, billboards in playgrounds and many others for

advertisement. We also have found that Zoozoo advertisement campaign is most effective

campaign compare to Pug and Happy to help service campaign because of its way of

making and giving information to customers.

In the same way, we learnt that how to do business research, how to collect relevant data,

how to sampling and how to analysis the fact. Through this report we have clear idea that

how to make an academic report. It helped us also to enhance our knowledge about how a

company does effective advertising, how they make different advertisement strategy for


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different area, how they segment the market and targeting. Whatever we mentioned

above our objective, almost we found and completed.

14.RecommendationDuring sampling we have found that many people felt difficulty to understand these

advertisements because as we know these are nonverbal advertisements. They do not

speak anything. By their body language we have to understand what massage they want

to convey to us. So if Vodafone use verbal advertisement then it would be more effective

for both consumers as well as for company.


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References

Kotler, P. & Keller, K. (2008).Marketing Management (13th ed).New Delhi: Prentice Hall

of India

Kothari. (2004), Research methodology (2nd edition). New age international private

limited. New Delhi

Kenneth, E., Baack, D. (2007). Integrated advertising promotion and marketing

communication (3rd edition). Dorling Kindersley India private limited. New Delhi

Lawrence, W. (2006). Social research method (6th edition). Dorling Kindersley pvt

limited. New Delhi

Onkvisit, S. , John, J. (2000). International marketing analysis & strategy (3 rd edition).Dorling Kindersley private limited. New Delhi

Saunders, M., lewis, P., Thornhill, A. (2003). Research method for business student (3rd

edition). Dorling Kindersley private limited. New Delhi

About Vodafone. Retrieved on 20th may 2009.http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article1368947.e

About Vodafone. Retrieved on 20th may 2009.

http://www.capitaline.com/user/framepage.asp?id=1

About Invasion of Zoozoo on 15th May 2009

Joshi, D. (2009). Invasion of Zoozoo, Brand Report Magazine ( May,2009). volume no.

20

Retrieved on 28th may 2009 about Zoozoo.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/05/01/stories/2009050150721300.htm


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Retrieved on 28th may 2009 about Zoozoo achievements.

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/vodafone%5Cs-%5Czoozoo%5C-ad-wins-

peta-award/62522/on

About Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

http://www.trai.gov.in/Default.asp

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Vodafone 's Advertisement Strategy in India