When four and a half years back, Vodafone entered the Indian market, the telecom space was already cluttered with about a
dozen existing service providers competing with each other to better their market share.
The Challenge
Being a global player, the primary challenge before Vodafone was to keep its premium imagery intact yet become inclusive in consumers’ life in India. Another challenge was to retain the subscriber base of Hutchison Essar, which it had acquired, and also to add new customers in one of the fastest growing telecom industry in the world.
Anuradha Aggarwal, VP, Brand Communication and Insights Vodafone India
As the telecom player grows to capture a subscriber base of nearly 15 crore in India now, the bigger challenge for it, however, is ‘how to continue to listen and talk to this growing consumer base which is unique in terms of its diversity.’
The Strategy
Though the space was dominated by Indian players, Vodafone realised the huge potential of Indian market, which was to grow manifold in the coming years.
Believing firmly that it needed to adapt to certain Indian characteristics to win consumers here, Vodafone decided to keep the basic brand promise and the core message – ‘Power to You’ – same, however, layered with India’s
cultural nuances.
“Marketers sometimes have very lofty ideas as how they are going to take a global property and make it Indian. However, it was very important for us to have certain Indian characteristics and how we must play to insights and stereotype of India,” says Anuradha Aggarwal, VP- Brand Communication and Insights, Vodafone India.
Vodafone positioned itself as an aspirational brand but also brought elements of inclusiveness in its marketing strategy. It devised a communication strategy which talked to different consumer segments without looking down at them. It also aimed to establish strong and enduring relationship with its customers as a ‘lovable’ brand that they could easily identify with.
The brand, however, also wanted to be perceived same across the globe with a certain understanding on what it stood for.
The consumer insight that it had gathered from the market was that “Indians have a notion of ‘global thing being exclusive’, ‘being aspirational was being premium’, and ‘exclusivity of a ‘Phirangi’ brand comes with it being inaccessible.”
There was a thin line that existed before Vodafone embarked on its success journey in India. Vodafone aimed to strike a fine balance here by being inclusive along with bringing an exclusive imagery of a global brand. It took cues from McDonald’s, which while keeping its imagery very English, customised its product to the Indian taste.
The implementation
Vodafone devised a communication strategy where it kept its entire communication language agnostic. Most of the communication was based on music that one can see and enjoy.
The telecom player made sure that its communication reaches to those it is meant for. Playing to regional tunes, it communicated its message to customers in their own language. For different states, it devised campaigns in regional language and used regional media to communicate its core message. “We made sure that we become part of our consumers’ basic lingo and ethos without changing the primary imagery of the brand which is still exclusive,” says Aggarwal.
With this principle, it created a new mix of communication. Though the communication for Vodafone in different countries may look different, but eventually it boils down to its core message ‘Power to You’. So, while the brand worked with global proposition like keeping its red logo unchanged, it brought in certain amount of localisation in its execution.
Aggarwal believes that “consistency across the world is the basic character of Vodafone as it makes lots of difference and gives consumers a truly global experience.”
In sync with its global promise, Vodafone positioned itself as a telecom service provider which enables its customers to do much more than what a mobile service is meant for. Like other global brands – Axe, Coca Cola, Nike, the telecom player kept its communication identical to Vodafone’s communication in other countries but customised its services a little to suit to Indian consumers’ need. Whether it be hankering for new dishes or trouble of finding a good match, Vodafone used common man’s language to identify with their problems and offers solutions accordingly.
The brand also played on emotions to make most of its communication language-agnostic. For example, it ran a campaign called Vodafone Delight and ran successfully in India so much so that players across the globe started copying it. This boosted the image of the brand being universal and global in its approach.
In 2008, it brought in simple yet appealing characters called Zoozoos which helped the brand make an instant connect with Indian consumers. The brand came with a fresh piece of communincation every day around the humorous character. The communication around the character was kept very simple and it took very little effort or time for audience to understand the message. Though, this was not an international model of communication that Vodafone had, but its appeal and ability to connect with consumers made it a hot favourite in some of the other countries also where Vodafone is present.
The other front where it connected with consumers was the passion of cricket which runs across the consumer segment in India. But for this, Vodafone made a smart media choice. Rather than associating with a cricketer or any other celebrity, it shared the Indian passion of cricket by being present around the sport.
It bought IPL in its first year, when it was really a small activity. From there, Vodafone remained present around the game in some form or other with its lovable characters. For example, when readers find Zoozoo on a little snippet, it reminds them that Vodafone is there and is associated with their passion.
“We knew that we can’t own cricket but then we made sure that the brand was present in a memorable way where the national passion was,” says Aggarwal.
Despite the fact that telecom and telephony exist everywhere and the technology is exactly the same, Vodafone brought customised product services for Indian consumers. For example, dialling 121 allows a Vodafone customer to choose best deals for themselves in terms of talk time. This product was devised especially for those Indian customers who can’t access internet or other mode of communication to get information on services.
Result
Vodafone is one of the leading players in India, a growing customer base with a subscriber base of about 15 crore. With its brand communication, the telecom brand has been able to maintain premium imagery yet its customised products appeals to masses. The brand has also been able to establish a strong emotional connect with Indian consumers; especially with its Zoozoos communication which brings a very high brand recall for Vodafone.
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