As a PR consultant I have worked on a number of telcos and infrastructure providers and telecom as a sector holds a special interest for me. It is still the most dynamic sector and I was really fortunate to get the ring side view of the Industry which was taking off in India. I
I just thought of sharing a commentary on some of the recent action in the sector:
I just thought of sharing a commentary on some of the recent action in the sector:
After the exit of the dynamic telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, the telecom sector in India had undergone a slight lull with no new plans and policy changes being made. Roll Out of 3G services has been put on hold and everyone is just waiting for the new spectrum policy to be formalized .
But some of the recent developments partly initiated by market forces and partly by TRAI have again set the ball rolling for the telecom sector in India. New Licenses have been issued, Idea has bought spice and has launched its operations in Mumbai. Tata JV with Virgin set the ball rolling for MVNOs with Virgin Mobile and interestingly TRAI has proposed to make MVNOs legal in India.
There are various other developments which are at play:
Two telecom biggies RCOM and Bharti AIRTEL after covering some ground by offering Broadband services are now getting ready to slug it out with plans of launching their DTH operations - Reliance has already announced its foray and Bharti under its AIRTEL brand is expected to announce its DTH operations soon. Both players are looking to leverage their existing customer base to offer one stop shop to its consumers under one bill. Interestingly the two big players already in the DTH business are from the Broadcasting sector – Tata Sky (JV between Tata and STAR) and Dish TV (from ZEE Group) – it will be interesting to see how this market pans out and see how the telecom giants compete with content companies on the DTH front. Though Reliance as a group has announced several plans including plans to launch 20 new channels, IPTV, movie rentals, movie production etc…so they are definitely looking at getting a lion share of the market both as a service and content provider.
COming back to the Telcos, the battle for acquiring new customers in a highly lucrative Circle like Mumbai seems to be getting hot with Idea and Virgin Mobile getting aggressive with innovative pricing and bundled offers. It has become clear to all the players that having sound infrastructure alone will not help the business – the major focus is on creating a distinct brand identity – the winner will be the one with a very positive and strong Brand perception amongst the consumers which cuts across all SECs.
And on the brand front – Vodafone after the acquisition of Hutch has been busy establishing its brand in the Indian market - so far we have not really seen any new unique proposition being brought to the table. They did announce some plans to invest around 2 billions USD in India. But we haven’t really heard anything of great significance.
Though I personally think their efforts in creating a distinct brand Identity in India has so far got a very mixed response. But you can’t really blame them – they entered the market at a very late stage – Majority of the other Brands present in the country have evolved along with the market so they have managed to form a very clear brand Identity in the market – Vodafone on the other Hand had to first overcome the emotion based branding of Hutch which had positioned it as an ‘Innovative’ player in the market and then establish Vodafone as a new global brand whose brand essence is built around four key words – Thoughtful(caring, emotional), Integrity (truthful, trustworthy), Dependable (reliable quality of network) and Value( affordable and value for money).
Interestingly, I feel Vodafone has tried too many things in too short a time – first the launch of new brand (which got massive media attention), then they tried to highlighting the emotional connect with ‘make the most of now’ campaign, parallelly highlighting the value message with some bundled offer campaign, then came their biggest campaign on ‘Happy to Help’ to position them as customer friendly brand (though a recent report which was covered in ET voted Vodafone as not so customer friendly).
Sponsorship and brand association are big part of Vodafone’s global marketing strategy and they normally choose sports as it cuts through customers of all age groups and class. They are sponsor for the England's Cricket team and also ran a campaign with David Beckham. They seem to be doing the same in India – they were present as key sponsors for the IPL 20 20 cricket tournament and also aligned themselves with F1 and did some promotional activity with the God of Racing Hamilton. But for a consumer, Vodafone has still not managed to create a distinct Identity for themselves.
Interestingly some other Brands have also tried to change its brand positioning – BPL Mobile for instance after the buyout by Essar, is trying to up its brand image mostly through outdoor and print campaigns but that has not really helped. Tata Indicom after its initial Non-Stop campaign with Ajay Devgun and kajol has revamped their advertising.
BSNL themselves are not keeping quiet and are part of all the action and have been running some odd campaigns with Preeti Zinta which doesn't really seems to be helping in terms of imagery but it is if you go by the numbers its definitely helping.
Now with TRAI proposing to allow net telephony on local and long distance and international calls - a new price war is slated to begin - though a normal consumer in a metro like Mumbai and Delhi is not too bothered about the call charges but it will definitely impact STD and International calls being made from mobile. When this proposal becomes a reality it is also expected to give much needed boost to broadband subscriber base in India and the Instant Messenger market will really pick up again. Internet telephony on mobile can really boost the overall VAS market and also benefit the internet players – mobile advertising can also get a boost – so this decision will definitely see a lot of action.
There is also a proposal to allow users the freedom to choose their long distance caller (STD) so the operators are now asking for calling cards. Number portability will become a reality by 2009 which can put some serious pressure on the players.
There are various other developments which are at play:
Two telecom biggies RCOM and Bharti AIRTEL after covering some ground by offering Broadband services are now getting ready to slug it out with plans of launching their DTH operations - Reliance has already announced its foray and Bharti under its AIRTEL brand is expected to announce its DTH operations soon. Both players are looking to leverage their existing customer base to offer one stop shop to its consumers under one bill. Interestingly the two big players already in the DTH business are from the Broadcasting sector – Tata Sky (JV between Tata and STAR) and Dish TV (from ZEE Group) – it will be interesting to see how this market pans out and see how the telecom giants compete with content companies on the DTH front. Though Reliance as a group has announced several plans including plans to launch 20 new channels, IPTV, movie rentals, movie production etc…so they are definitely looking at getting a lion share of the market both as a service and content provider.
COming back to the Telcos, the battle for acquiring new customers in a highly lucrative Circle like Mumbai seems to be getting hot with Idea and Virgin Mobile getting aggressive with innovative pricing and bundled offers. It has become clear to all the players that having sound infrastructure alone will not help the business – the major focus is on creating a distinct brand identity – the winner will be the one with a very positive and strong Brand perception amongst the consumers which cuts across all SECs.
And on the brand front – Vodafone after the acquisition of Hutch has been busy establishing its brand in the Indian market - so far we have not really seen any new unique proposition being brought to the table. They did announce some plans to invest around 2 billions USD in India. But we haven’t really heard anything of great significance.
Though I personally think their efforts in creating a distinct brand Identity in India has so far got a very mixed response. But you can’t really blame them – they entered the market at a very late stage – Majority of the other Brands present in the country have evolved along with the market so they have managed to form a very clear brand Identity in the market – Vodafone on the other Hand had to first overcome the emotion based branding of Hutch which had positioned it as an ‘Innovative’ player in the market and then establish Vodafone as a new global brand whose brand essence is built around four key words – Thoughtful(caring, emotional), Integrity (truthful, trustworthy), Dependable (reliable quality of network) and Value( affordable and value for money).
Interestingly, I feel Vodafone has tried too many things in too short a time – first the launch of new brand (which got massive media attention), then they tried to highlighting the emotional connect with ‘make the most of now’ campaign, parallelly highlighting the value message with some bundled offer campaign, then came their biggest campaign on ‘Happy to Help’ to position them as customer friendly brand (though a recent report which was covered in ET voted Vodafone as not so customer friendly).
Sponsorship and brand association are big part of Vodafone’s global marketing strategy and they normally choose sports as it cuts through customers of all age groups and class. They are sponsor for the England's Cricket team and also ran a campaign with David Beckham. They seem to be doing the same in India – they were present as key sponsors for the IPL 20 20 cricket tournament and also aligned themselves with F1 and did some promotional activity with the God of Racing Hamilton. But for a consumer, Vodafone has still not managed to create a distinct Identity for themselves.
Interestingly some other Brands have also tried to change its brand positioning – BPL Mobile for instance after the buyout by Essar, is trying to up its brand image mostly through outdoor and print campaigns but that has not really helped. Tata Indicom after its initial Non-Stop campaign with Ajay Devgun and kajol has revamped their advertising.
BSNL themselves are not keeping quiet and are part of all the action and have been running some odd campaigns with Preeti Zinta which doesn't really seems to be helping in terms of imagery but it is if you go by the numbers its definitely helping.
Now with TRAI proposing to allow net telephony on local and long distance and international calls - a new price war is slated to begin - though a normal consumer in a metro like Mumbai and Delhi is not too bothered about the call charges but it will definitely impact STD and International calls being made from mobile. When this proposal becomes a reality it is also expected to give much needed boost to broadband subscriber base in India and the Instant Messenger market will really pick up again. Internet telephony on mobile can really boost the overall VAS market and also benefit the internet players – mobile advertising can also get a boost – so this decision will definitely see a lot of action.
There is also a proposal to allow users the freedom to choose their long distance caller (STD) so the operators are now asking for calling cards. Number portability will become a reality by 2009 which can put some serious pressure on the players.
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