 "Tata Sky targets south India with robust content and marketing")
Tata Sky, the direct-to-home service provider with the second largest subscriber base in the country, has now set its eyes on the south India market. Targetting the four south Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh,the DTH operator aims to beef up presence in the south, a market dominated by the Sun Group's Sun Direct which has almost 50 to 55% market share by volume.
The campaign is backed by customised packaging and services for the market after the Tata sky team carried out research based on customer feedback. "The first market we targeted was Kerala. When we went on the field and asked people what they found lacking in the Tata Sky offering. We got to know that the people felt we did not have enough South Indian channels. So we went out there, got on more channels and reasonable cost and made the customer service centres better suited for Kerala," says Vikram Mehra, chief commercial officer, Tata Sky.
The Tata Sky bouquet for the south market offers close to 87 south Indian language channels (31 Tamil,23 Telegu, 14 Kannada and 19 Malayalam) along with a wide range of English entertainment channels and knowledge based (edutainment orinfotainment channels) as part of its basic packs. The company also provides a 24x7 helpline that is trained to answer subscriber queries in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam as part of beefing up its customer service.
In case of its Kerala campaign, the company roped in actor Mohan Lal to communicate the fact that Tata Sky had listened to its consumers and now had more to offer in terms of channels and services to them. A similar tact is being employed for the other three states. This time around as well, the DTH operator has roped in popular celebrities Mahesh Babu and Sudesh for the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka campaign. While the campaign has been designed to communicate that Tata Sky offers exactly what the South Indian customers want, which state has different creatives deployed in print, outdoor and on television.
This creatives are inspired by insights drawn from each state and then woven with the intend communiation. For example, the Karnataka campaign with Sudeep is built on the insight that people have gotten used to adjusting to most things in life. The advertising thus suggests that with Tata Sky's superior offerings there is no need to compromise when one is choosing a settop box. Similar insights have been used in the Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh specific advertising campaigns.
"After we added local language channels and spruced up our customer service centres and carried out the campaign with Mohan Lal, we took leadership position in Kerala (in terms of incremental subscribers per month) within six months. We are confident that if we have the products and services at the right cost, we will be able to strengthen our presence in the south," said Mehra.
While he remained silent on the issue of market shares and competition in the south market, a professional in the industry revealed that Sun Direct is faced with the problem of high churn. "In the first place, the urban territories in south Indian states are slowly becoming level playing grounds for all DTH players. In the rural ones however, Sun Direct still rules and is a giant player. But because of the high subsidy given on the STB's, the quality of the boxes is being compromised. Customers now prefer to just discard the old box and get a new one if it gets spoilt rather than get it repaired. You see, the cost of getting a new one is the same as getting the existing one repaired. While they may buy anotherSun Direct box itself, the churn is affecting Sun Direct's growth,"he says.
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