Vodafone uses BW for name-change ad

In a first of its kind advertising campaign, telecom service provider Vodafone has chosen a business magazine cover to run a customised advertisement for select business news readers across India.

Under the arrangement, Vodafone used the cover page of the magazine's latest issue to reach out to the chosen few.

The customised ad came as a false cover page and was addressed to each recipient of each magazine, explaining the rationale behind the change from Hutch to Vodafone.

"We ran the campaign nationally. We chose the magazine because we wanted to target business news readers. The magazine's issue date also collided with the time when the Hutch name transition happened, September 21 onwards," said Harit Nagpal, Vodafone's marketing and new business director.

The customised ad had printed the subscriber's name (say X) on the cover page so that it started "Hello X, ...", and went on to explain the transition and what was in store for the subscriber looking forward.

It went ahead though the recipient was not necessarily a Hutch subscriber.

Vodafone used the customised advertisement for its own subscribers as well as a select non-subscribers who Vodafone wanted to reach out to.

Nagpal declined to comment on how many copies of the magazine were used for its customised advertisement.

"We ran the campaign nationally. It was a one-time campaign and the idea was to reach out to consumers interested in business news," Nagpal added.

In one of India's largest media blitzes, Vodafone kicked off the re-branding of its new Indian mobile phone business by buying all the commercials on Star India's cable channels and plastering 80 newspapers nationwide with advertisements.

Vodafone, the world's leading mobile teelcommunication company, completed the acquisition of Hutchinson Essar in May 2007 and the company was formally renamed Vodafone Essar in July 2007.

The publication selected was 'Businessworld', the business magazine of Ananda Bazaar Patrika Group, September 23 edition.