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Securing the high ground

Through a new campaign, Lava International hopes to usurp the properties of reliability and trust

Securing the high ground

Sangeeta Tanwar
In categories such as smartphones where there is very little product differentiation, manufacturers tend to endow brands with specific personalities to lure consumers and ensure their continued patronage. Apple's iPhone commercials, for instance, focus on the product's sophistication, and the brand's competence and sincerity. The background score is quirky, and the frequent celebrity appearances drive home the point that the phone is a favourite of people who have arrived in life.

Apple's main competitor Samsung, on its part, takes frequent jabs at new Apple products, poking fun at the iPhone's diehard fans. By reiterating in its tagline, "the next big thing is already here", it has often tried to mock iPhone lovers who are known to stand in queues for hours together to lay their hands on the next big thing. In a way, "the next big thing is already here" is a call to Apple users to switch to Samsung and get the same level of sophistication without wasting time.
 
Though not quite in the same league yet, homegrown Lava International, the No. 5 smartphone maker in India, has taken a similar route in a recent commercial to own the planks of sportiness and reliability. Its "Never Lets You Down" campaign pitches cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni against an imaginary Lava spokesperson played by actor Prateik Babbar.

The television commercial (TVC), set in a locker room, opens with the shot of Dhoni reluctantly listening to Babbar as he urges him to become the ambassador of the Lava brand. With a sly smile, Dhoni asks Babbar to offer a good reason why he should believe in a salesperson's spiel. Babbar urges Dhoni to try the phone for himself and tries to pass on a handset to Dhoni. The latter drops the phone to the ground on purpose. Picking up the phone from the ground, Dhoni playfully apologises to Babbar and examines the phone for any damage. A beaming Babbar says a Lava phone goes through hundreds of tests including a "drop test" and hence the handset is intact.

A voice-over talks about the various tests every Lava phone is subjected to. The scene shifts backs to the locker room, where an impressed Dhoni asks Babbar if there is any specific test that Lava hasn't undertaken. Babbar retorts it's Dhoni's catching skills that remain untested.

"The mobile phone market is extremely cluttered. You have new entrants coming in every day. Since everyone is selling Android phones and there is a limit to which one can differentiate a brand on the basis of features alone, we felt there is a need to reposition brand Lava," says Solomon Wheeler, vice-president and head, marketing and communication, Lava International. The campaign, therefore, positions Lava as the most bankable brand on offer. In a sense, the campaign also aims to pitch Lava as an aspirational brand, claims Wheeler. "We are focusing on making aspirational technology accessible to people at large; the idea is to move the focus beyond features that are easily replicable and shift the conversation to reliability and trust."

Lava's product portfolio consists of entry level feature phones, low to mid-range smartphones. The price points for Lava mobile phones starts at Rs 990 and goes up to Rs 13,000. According to Wheeler, Lava is not chasing the high-end smartphone segment. Instead it's targeting consumers who are seeking value at price points between Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000. The "Never Lets You Down" campaign targets this set of consumers who are either looking at converting from a feature phone to a basic smartphone or are upgrading from a basic smartphone to a mid-range smartphone.

Dhoni, the company believes, can connect with this consumer segment easily. "We wanted a celebrity or a personality who is an embodiment of similar values. And nobody stands as tall as Dhoni does when it comes to dependability," adds Wheeler. The fact that Dhoni's appeal cuts across geography and language barriers made the choice an easy one.

On his part, Babbar plays the key role of a protagonist who helps take the story forward. "Dhoni as a brand ambassador brings certain values to the table. We felt we needed a talented actor to bring alive the qualities of the brand in the commercial. Prateik is not only a good actor but is also not exposed enough. He turns out to be an ideal foil to Dhoni," says Kapil Arora, president, O&M (Soho Square, the creative agency on the brand, is a subsidiary of O&M). "We realised we needed to demonstrate that reliability does not come from making tall claims but is an outcome of extensive research and development, customer satisfaction, retail experience and service experience offered by a brand. And hence the story of convincing a person through demonstration."

Brand: Lava International
Budget: Rs 30 crore
Agency: Soho Square

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First Published: Jun 13 2016 | 12:08 AM IST

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