Reliance Communications tries to rope in more users for its wireless internet offering through a campaign focused on the youth.
You can take videos on your handycam and upload them on social networking sites. And you can adopt cute puppies by checking out videos on Facebook. Reliance Communications plays on popular trends in the latest advertisement for its wireless internet service, Reliance Netconnect Broadband+.
The TVC opens with a shot of a girl reading a book on a beach with some youngsters playing volleyball in the backdrop. Meanwhile, another girl from the group walks towards a dustbin and throws something in. However, just next to the dustbin she’s delighted to find puppies wrapped in a cloth. Upon seeing this, a passerby says; “Aaj kyo uuthaya hai, kal yeh bhi road par aa jayenge” (Why did you pick the puppy up, tomorrow it will be on the road?). The girl replies she’ll find the puppies a home.
The next scene shows the youngsters taking away the pups and taking care of them. One person in the group starts shooting them with a camcorder after which the girl connects her Reliance Netconnect into her laptop and uploads the video onto Facebook. Soon after, we see someone taking the pups in a basket on the bicycle where they meet the earlier passerby who now helps the group in their quest. Next, while on the laptop, one of them holds the pup and exclaims, “You’re flying to Delhi, dude.” The camera closes in on the Reliance Netconnect device as the voiceover intones — Recharge to the world with India’s superfast wireless internet, Reliance Netconnect Broadband plus.
This ad is directed at the 20 to 35 years old, upwardly mobile working adult who is on the move and uses a lot of technology for this purpose. “The ad is meant to cover our two demographics: Teenagers to young adults aged up to 35, and the other segment consists of business users aged anywhere between 25 and 55 who are also known as the road warriors,” says Reliance Communications President Mahesh Prasad.
Tailored to target
Of late, companies across sectors have their sights set on customers between 20 and 30 years, and Prasad is aware that is the way to go. Not surprisingly then, campaigns such as this are tailored to their tastes and habits. “Based on our research with our advertising agency, we have a fairly good understanding of what to do in terms of our commercials, which is why we’re focused on the forward-looking, competitive individual who has very little time. That shows in the kind of actors we hire and what we showcase,” explains Prasad. Are products tweaked to suit customers? “Given the kind of space we’re in, which is primarily network driven and technically superior, that’s a little hard to do. Thus we tailor our communication rather than our product,” adds he.
Having said that, Prasad maintains that there are certain things the company does to suit its customers. For one, it has done away with installation wizards. Next, it ensures that users are able to make payments online rather than standing in queues. “We’re trying to tailor our entire portfolio,” says Prasad. DDB Mudra National Creative Director Rajeev Raja says Reliance Communications gave a two-fold brief: “One, it needs to expand its coverage and reach out to more geographies; and two, it needs to get more people to switch to its service and establish itself as a fresh connection.” The point of the campaign was to show how Reliance Netconnect enables people to do things right here and right now. “We continued on our earlier theme and are building on that showing a need for faster speed and bringing out the functional benefits of the product,” adds Prasad.
Close fight
Importantly though, the ad coincides with slashed product prices. Tata Photon Plus began the fight by reducing prices by Rs 1,200 to Rs 2,299. No sooner, others followed suit. For its part, R-Com has cut prices from Rs 3,500 to Rs 2,299. At present, the wireless broadband category faces stiff competition with players like Tata Photon Plus, MTS, Idea Cellular, Airtel and Reliance Netconnect Broadband+. And while Prasad won’t reveal his market share or how many customers he has, he claims to be the market leader in this space. “Our network is the strongest in the country covering as many as 62 major towns giving us the highest market share.”
For its part, Tata Teleservices maintains that it is the market leader in this space. Says Tata Teleservices Chief Marketing Officer Lloyd Mathias: “We created the category and we’re the market leader in the space.” Since its launch in the beginning of 2009, Tata Teleservices has come out with as many as four big campaigns, while this is Reliance’s second. During the Indian Premier League this year, Tata Teleservices launched its prepaid services, and now it has launched its Speed Living campaign to show its prowess in the mobile phone space.
Like its rival, Tata Teleservices too is targeting those aged between 16 and 40. “Here we try to talk to people who want to have their cake and eat it as well. They have a sense of entitlement and impatience and they want instant rewards,” Mathias points out. To ensure he gets it right, Mathias and his team pre-test their commercials to the target audience in high-income geographies. The new Speed Living campaign is a case in point. “Also because we’re talking to the youth we make sure that our ads do not use any technology jargon and simply focus on the experience the product offers,” he adds.
Both companies will run their campaigns for six to eight weeks and follow it up with full 360-degree activation. While DDB Mudra is the creative agency for the Reliance campaign, Contract is responsible for Tata Teleservices’ commercial. Over the course of the year, both players will be coming out with more campaigns.
