The world at your fingertips

Campign Logic: HTC

A comparatively recent entrant to the Indian handset market, HTC is trying to get a strong foothold in the industry with a series of interesting ads.

The launch campaign of HTC is not just about introducing a new handset in an already cluttered market but to create space for HTC ‘the brand’ in the consumer’s mind. The television commercial (TVC) tells the story of a guy who is trying to woo his girl back. But the whole sequence is shot in an interesting way with two fingers painted as if they are walking legs following the girl around. She is seen going about her everyday tasks — in a ballet class, taking a shower, putting on nail polish or just checking her email — and the legs right behind her seeking her forgiveness.

The background score, composed by Ashutosh goes, “Tere maafi ko mein waiting, waiting”. The TVC ends with the guy winning the girl over, establishing that with the new HTC Explorer the world is just a touch way.

“The insight for the advertising came from the fact that the youth of today is tech savvy and prefers keeping in touch with friends and peers through social media websites, chats and mails. Our objective is to communicate that HTC Explorer helps achieve all this through the magic touch of your fingers,” points out Faisal Siddiqui, country head, HTC India.

With that goal in mind, HTC’s ad agency Meridian Communications had to come up with something that would stand out but be simple enough for the average viewer to grasp the embedded message. “We were toying with different concepts for the Explorer,” says Krishna Mani, creative director, Meridian Communications. “And the idea of using fingers as characters popped up in one of our brainstorming sessions. It was a simple idea but the challenge was how to make it clutter breaking and vibrant. That was when my art partner suggested painting people’s fingers and doing a trial run to see how it would look. We caught unsuspecting people in our office, painted their fingers, and shot them. It turned up really nice. The client loved it. Then it was a matter of finetuning the whole sequence and getting it shot by a professional.”

Meridian Communications has also conceptualised the print ads for HTC that have painted fingers to demonstrate a cricket match, a scene from a Hindi movie and a simple ride on a bike ride. An outdoor campaign along similar lines is also part of the promotion.

The company has recently launched the Sensation XL and Rhyme phone in India. HTC Explorer, priced at Rs 11,650, is the first smart phone from the HTC stable to support Hindi language. It is also pegged as the fastest touch screen phone in the country. HTC is positive that using fingers to represent the protagonist would immediately establish a connect with the young crowd, its primary target.

“HTC Explorer is a device, which, in a way, is an extension of its user,” says Siddiqui. “A friend, a buddy that lets you access the world without much difficulty and this is the emotional bond that we have tried to bring out in this campaign. We want our consumers to experience for themselves the things our phones can do. Therefore, the story of our TVC is light hearted, playful and youth centric.”

Though a late entrant HTC seems to be successfully creating a slot for itself in the Indian handset market. The Indian mobile handset market grew 15 per cent to Rs 33,171 crore in 2010-11, according to an annual study by telecom industry journal Voice & Data with Nokia and Samsung at No 1 and No 2 spots respectively. The same data shows that HTC saw a growth of 99 per cent (albeit on a small base), the highest among all the brands surveyed, thanks to its Android range. The CyberMedia Research shows that HTC had a 7 per cent market share in the Indian smartphones market in the quarter ending September 2011.