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His master's footprints

Campaign Logic

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Gouri Shukla Mumbai
Last Updated : Jun 14 2013 | 2:39 PM IST
 
The little dog "" a cute pug "" is quietly resting under a bed. It's reverie is soon broken as the owner, a little boy, wakes up. The pug immediately perks up and starts following the boy as he gets ready and marches out of the house.

 
The boy passes by houses and then through the narrow alleys, which lead to a bridge over a small stream. He crosses the bridge, then a road lined with greenery to join his friends in a football game.

 
Throughout this small journey, the dog trots behind him. Even when he takes a break to answer nature's call or perches himself atop a stone wall, the pug is right beside him.

 
Finally, the day is over and the little boy trudges home. The dog tags behind, trying to keep pace as fast as his short legs allow him. It stumbles over a huge log as the boy easily hops over. It slips over some wet stony stairs as the boy climbs effortlessly.

 
But it still manages to trot along wherever the boy goes. The closing shot shows the boy deeply asleep after a strenuous day with his pet sleeping beside him." Wherever you go, our network follows," says the adline.

 
This engaging 60-second television commercial is Hutchison Telecom's latest campaign which is currently being aired on all Sony, Zee and Star channels, apart from regional channels like Gemini and Raj. Conceptualised by advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, the film is shot in a scenic village in Goa.

 
What is the commercial trying to say? The creative hook is simple. Like the pet that faithfully follows the little boy wherever he goes, the idea is to tell viewers that the Hutch network follows the user all the time.

 
That is why the boy is shown to be oblivious to the presence of the dog beside him, just as much as ordinary subscribers take network coverage for granted. The faithful dog is a proxy for efficient network coverage.

 
"Technology is intimidating, so our communication revolves around this simple human analogy," says Renuka Jaypal, national business director, Ogilvy & Mather.

 
This campaign marks a sharp difference from Hutch's previous television commercials. Earlier commercials have mostly been informative in nature in that they were launched to communicate new services (like the multi-media messaging service launched as few months ago, which showed simple steps to send an MMS on a Hutch phone).

 
Hutch is present in seven out of 22 circles in India (second to Airtel's presence in 15 circles among private operators).

 
It is the third-largest wireless operator with a 17 per cent market share of GSM cellular services, while BSNL and Bharti have a 21 per cent and 25 per cent respectively (source: Cellular Operators Association of India June 2003 figures).

 
So why is the company trying to communicate the strength of its network only now? The reason is partly to do with its own expansion plans but probably more a way of staying top-of-the-mind in a market that is being increasingly driven by price.

 
The need for this campaign can be traced to the evolving market situation over the past year. The Indian market for wireless telephony services was adding 0.2 million new subscribers every month in 1995.

 
Now the incremental monthly growth has gone up to 0.97 million. The wireless market has grown from just two to three million subscribers in 1999 to 14.2 subscribers as of March 2003.

 
This accelerating growth has been the product of price-driven competition, especially when wireless-in-local loop (WLL) service providers like Reliance India and Bharat Sanchar Nigam started offering dirt cheap services at the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003.

 
WLL operators were able to offer cheaper talk-time rates for users owing to technology advantages. For instance, Reliance launched with a "Pioneer scheme" that offered talk-time of three minutes for Re 1.

 
The other operators reacted to the impending competition from WLL players by adding value-added services like GPRS (General Radio Packet Service "" this feature enables mobile users to download content and multi-media messages and pictures) and slashing prices.

 
For example, when Bharti launched its cellular service Airtel in Maharashtra in August 2002, it offered services that were 60 to 70 paise lower that than existing rates.

 
Predictably, a price war broke out as other cellular operators followed suit. The upshot of this was that phone companies have no real differentiator to talk of, but a growing problem as cheap rates brought in more subscribers and put pressure on networks.

 
"We anticipated pressure on existing networks due to a dramatic rise in subscriber base. This rise is linked to the spate of tariff slashes and free incoming calls from June 2003," says Harit Nagpal, vice-president, corporate marketing.

 
While Hutch's average tariff per outgoing call under the post-paid billing scheme dropped from Rs 2.30 to Rs 1.50, the subscriber base almost tripled in about eight months.

 
"We couldn't have retained the same network to meet the rise in subscriber base," adds Nagpal.

 
Currently, Hutch has a total network of 3,100 cellular sites,which is about 900 up from the previous year. By the end of this year, it plans to add 300 new sites to service three new circles.

 
Since network glitches are increasing, Hutch hopes to highlight its strength.

 
This campaign is also significant for Hutch as the first collective brand campaign of sorts launched by the company after it consolidated its cellular service brands in Gujarat (Celforce), Kolkata (Command) and Delhi (Essar) under the brand name Hutch.

 
However, the company didn't launch the campaign immediately after its brand consolidation.

 
"We needed six to eight month till we could fully expand and strengthen our network," explains Nagpal. Now that it has been achieved, the company expects the campaign to do the talking.

 

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First Published: Sep 16 2003 | 12:00 AM IST

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