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VODAFONE ESSAR'S ADVERTISING STRATEGY

The 'Zoozoos' Campaign

ARUL SHANO

JEGAN

RAJESH

It’s Your Place..

Vodafone Group

5

The communications leaders in

an increasingly connected world

16 April 2013

Vodafone -

It’s Your Place..

across 30 countries

Vodafone Group

6

served by 79,000 employees (31

Mar 09)

315 million proportionate customers

Vodafone majority owned

Partner Markets / Subsidiaries

16 April 2013

Vodafone

Agenda

Background and Introduction

Need identification

Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning

Pricing, Packaging, Price, Distribution, Advertising Strategy

What went wrong, what could have been done better

Current situation

Learning

Background

Vodafone entered India in December 2005

Acquired 10 percent stake in Bharti Ventures Limited

(Bharti Airtel)

Successfully rebranded 'Hutch' as 'Vodafone„

Vodafone Essar started expanding its presence in

India

Rebranding included

“Change is good...” Baseline - “Hutch is now Vodafone”

Earlier Campaigns : Happy to help, Friend circle,

Cheaper SMS, „Amar Chitra Katha‟ Alerts

Days before Zoozoo

„Pug‟ was the mascot for vodafone

Taken over from Hutch

IPL 2008 had Vodafone going in Pug for its „Happy

to Help‟ service

Need identification

Value Added Services of Vodafone needed more

promotion

ZooZoo was the perfect way to spread awareness

VAS is considered a cash cow for cellular companies

IPL season 2 had lot of scope to be taken

advantage

Introduction

Zoozoos: Advertisement characters promoted by

Vodafone during the India Premier League Season

2 (IPL)

Campaign to communicate the VAS offered by the

company

The ads were created by Ogilvy & Mather, an

agency under Executive Creative Director, Rajiv

Rao, South Asia.

Making of Zoozoo

Prakash Verma of Nirvana Films

Filmed in South Africa with local crew

Movement, Talk, Gestures, Emotions, Costume

designs and artwork

3 weeks pre-production and 2 different fabrics

Alien (ZooZoo) Design

2 designs were considered

Fat potato head

Slim Version with bigger face

Egg head version finalised

Characterization: Leads simple lives, emotes like humans

Talk Gibberish

Simple, Silly, Funny, Adorable

Big Frowns, Hearty Laughs, Grins

Costs

Animations 10-15 times costlier than real people

ZooZoos had low cost costumes, real people

Speedy Schedules

30 advertisements cost only Rs 3 Crores

20-30 sec long

ZooZoo name nowhere in commercial

Massive Viral Marketing

SWOT Analysis

STRENGTHS:

Campaign penetrated both in the media as well as in

social networking sites

Was representation of a common man depicted as a

cartoon character ZOOZOO

Wide media coverage, more precisely through video

Easy and cheap animation leading to low production

cost

No celebrity endorser - No associated risks and

costs

SWOT Analysis (cont…)

WEAKNESS:

Had an undermining effect on the brand Vodafone

Difficulty in understanding faced by rural

population

SWOT Analysis (cont…)

OPPORTUNITIES:

Revolution in the conventional way of advertising that was through public figures and celebrities

Low advertising cost leading to provision of cheaper services

IPL Season 2 expected to have good TRP‟s

THREATS:

A major intimidation to the brand VODAFONE

Ads could get lost in major marketing war during IPL

BCG matrix

• SMS and Calling Service • GPRS and Internet Service

• Value Added Service

• MMS Service

Segmentation

ZOOZOO - A cartoon character which represented

common man

Segmented basis on types of services used

Urban and Rural region customers were seperated

out

Targeting

Targeted customers who would use VAS services

Different kinds of VAS services were offered for

different kinds of customers

Urban customers were more in focus

Advertising - TVC

About 30 different TVCs for VAS including -

Cricket alerts, beauty alerts, phone backup,

Chota Credit, Vodafone Maps, Vodafone call

filter, Live games, Musical greetings etc.

20-30 seconds ads

with the message

about the VAS. And

ending with “Make the

Most of Now”

Advertising - Internet

Dedicated microsite – “What kind of Zoozoo are

you?”

Downloadable Ringtones, wallpapers, screensavers

and videos

Facebook – aimed at building a community

Themes for advertisement

Magic Box

Stock Alerts

International Roaming

Bhakti Saagar

Busy message

Dating Tips

Voice SMS

Fashion Tips

Recharge Anywhere

Ringtone

Facebook

Group SMS

Call Divert

Background Music

Exam Results

Beauty Tips

Phone Backup

IPL commentary

Cricket Alerts

IPL contests

Chotta Credit

Maps Live

Call Filter

Live Games

Musical greetings

Start of the match

Persuasion Matrix for Zoozoo

Persuasion Matrix helps marketers see how each

controllable element of their ad interact with the

consumer‟s response process

Promotional Planning :

Comprehension/Receiver - Television audience

Attention/Source - Zoozoo

Presentation/Channel – TV Commercials

Yielding/Message - The different ads

What kind of Zoozoo are you?

Pricing and Promotional Offers

Offers like providing Cricket Alerts, Beauty Alerts,

Phone Backup, Chota Credit, Maps, Call Filter were

provided

All these services were at affordable prices, some

around 30 Rs per month

Distribution

These services were started in all circles by

Vodafone at one go

Zoozoo campaign was in place with all distributors

in super quick time

Viral Marketing

Vodafone was successful in effort of viral marketing

Strategy captured imagination of millions across the

country

Every age group was interested in the ad and the

related VAS products

Success

ZooZoos dominating social networking sites

Created Strong Association

Wallpapers, emoticons, ringtones, videos, contests,

pictures, stories etc

Videos had 3million hits in 3 weeks

Most watched viral video for 2 weeks

Youtube ad downloads

Twitter

IPL Impact

85% of most visible brand on screen

Hit in both the weeks

Most watched brand in breaks

Others were Airtel, Lifebuoy, Airtel Broadband

Internet

Vodafone – 15% of commercial ads

Havells – 8%, Airtel and Idea – 7% each

The telecom battle

Bharti Airtel, Idea are biggest competitors

Airtel launched „My Airtel My Offer‟ with

Madhavan and Vidya Balan

Idea launched „Walk when you talk‟ with Abhishek

Bachan

Current market scenario

ARPU at a very low point

Minimal Call and other services rate

Competition in this sector

Frequency of Zoozoo ads reduced

Zoozoo Merchandise

What could have been done better ?

Zoozoos becoming more popular than the network

itself

Messages written in text in the end - difficult to

comprehend for viewers from semi urban and rural

areas

Avoid hammering different products in short span

Phased release of each storyline to promote

different offers

Some Number Crunching

Vodafone reports on at end of Q1 FY10

Vodafone India added 7.68 million subscribers in

the quarter

ZooZoo advertisements helped Vodafone to

increase its customer base by 3.8% in Q1

Vodafone reported an increase of 23 percent in

revenue at constant exchange rates

Learning's

Low cost ads can make good impact

Concept is important

Expensive Brand Ambassadors could be avoided

Ads more relate to common man

Most Importantly

‘Keep it simple’

T

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ARUL

SHANO

JEGAN

RAJESH

SHANO