1. Conduct an internal and external analysis of the company . Use the SWOT analysis too to synthesize this information.

CASE STUDY

Vodafone has been extremely successful, from the beginning, in capturing the mind share of Indian consumers with their attractive advertisements; adorable mascots Hutch pug, zoozoos; the story telling behind the changes in the logo; the brand name. As per the data available on the customer base growth, Vodafone has been quite successful in its marketing communication strategy. But the dilemma of Marten Pieters, CEO, Vodafone Essar Ltd, is that despite this, the usage rate is low. Customers happily purchase the connection but are very stringent as far as using the services are concerned. Vodafone, therefore, needs to rethink and redene the marketing communication approach.

Company background

Vodafone Essar formerly known as Hutchison Essar, is a Mumbai-based Indian subsidiary of Vodafone group. The company has operations in India with over 152.664 million customers. It is the second largest mobile operator in terms of revenue share, after Bharti Airtel, holding a revenue market share of 20.6 percent, and the second largest in terms of subscribers base.

Vodafone started its Indian operations in 1994 with the brand name Max Touch which was renamed to Orange in the year 2000, followed by Hutch in 2006. The company initially established its business in the major metropolitan cities, namely Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. Soon it was able to establish a robust network, well-known brand and large distribution network in these densely populated urban areas, targeting business users and high-end post-paid customers.

Hutchison Telecom announced that it had entered into a binding agreement with a subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc to sell its 67 percent direct and indirect equity and loan interests in Hutchison Essar Limited for a total cash consideration (before costs, expenses and interests) of approximately $11.1 billion. The marketing brand of Hutch was ofcially changed to Vodafone.

All through the journey of its growth in India, Vodafone Essar, has followed a well thought and carefully crafted communication propositions. The regular changes in the brand were beautifully integrated into all its communication, thus enhancing the personality of the brand.

Launch of Max Touch in India

The story of Vodafone began in 1995 when it was launched in India by the name Max Touch. This was the year when mobile services were introduced in the Indian market. As a result, Max Touch launched itself using the tagline Hello Bombay the idea was to develop an international brand personality. It was able to communicate this by using celebrities from various backgrounds to endorse it. Until then mobile just meant carrying cordless phones within the specied area. It became more necessary to educate the consumers about what mobile telephony was all about? Therefore, most of the advertisements, such as Can I call STD; Can I use my phone in a lift?; What is airtime, educated the customers about the advantages of mobile phones services. It was also the rst cellular company to establish national roaming in the year 1996.

Max Touch to Orange

Max Touch became Orange. The company had to redene the Indian communication strategies modifying its approach from the conventional educative approach to a more competitive approach. As most of the brands during this period were city or state specic and not national, most of the marketing and advertising campaigns of Orange were accomplished without employing the broadcast medium. Advertising in the form of billboards and print media was used, engaging customers through focused localized campaigns. Apart from this the company also adopted strategic sponsorship to the events that held great resonance with the middle-class customers. This helped in transforming the consumer perception of the brand with customers associating it with leadership and innovation.

Introducing Hutch Pug

Hutchison group acquired a number of different telecom players, primarily in Delhi, Kolkata and Gujarat regions to increase its hold in the Indian market. Subsequently, Hutchison Essar Limited launched its umbrella brand Hutch with a new mascot, Hutch pug.

A series of advertisements ashed the electronic as well as print media, communicating the arrival of a telecom service supported by very strong network coverage an attribute that was not ideally achievable by most telecom service providers. The advertisements featured a pug following a small boy in the most unlikely places. The tagline given was Wherever you go, our network follows.

This simple message communicated through pug with the backdrop of a beautiful song, helped generating interest in Hutchbrand. A series of advertisements highlighting the attribute were aired by Hutchison Essar Limited.

Apart from the advertisements, Hutchison Essar also promoted brand Hutch by introducing a number of value-added services such as cricket scores, stock market information, Hutch World (GPRS service), Hutch Alive and Hutch4Help. They also came up with Chhota Recharge advertisements, highlighting the small value recharge coupons.

Hutch changed the colour of the tristar in its logo from orange to pink. Once again, Hutch adopted a simple and minimalist approach to communication by advertising on billboards that simply said Bye. Within a week of the placement of these billboards, the same place sported a new Hutch tristar in pink.

propagating the non-stop news, highlights and other alerts being provided to the Hutch customers and the educative and informative messages of pink Hutch highlighting the small, medium and large (SML) plans for less, average and most talkative customers.

Vodafones arrival in India

Vodafone acquired a 67 percent stake in Hutchison. What followed was the re-branding of Hutchison Telecom to Vodafone. This was done beautifully with the help of advertisements where the Hutch pug found a new kennel (all red in colour). The advertisements communicated the message: Change is Good, Hutch is now Vodafone. The colour of the brand logo also changed from pink to red. Apart from the kennel advertisement, there were ads showing a wet pug on a red rug; pug peeping out from a red blanket and so on. All the ads created a distinct image of red colour to the viewer thus helping them to start associating Hutch with Vodafone. The Happy to Help advertisement was again one of the best aired advertisements on TV. Vodafone beautifully incorporated the Hutch mascot The Pug, as its own mascot. The ad used the friendship between a dog and human to creatively communicate Vodafone is Happy to Help its customers.

Created by O&M, the new campaign featured Vodafones trademark character the young girl and the pug. Speaking to Campaign India about the campaign, Rajiv Rao, Executive Creative Director, O&M said, This time, we started off wanting to refresh Vodafones customer service promise. The promise itself was not new; it has been a brand philosophy since its launch and the rst time we stated this overtly was with the Happy to Help campaign during the IPL.

Vodafone came out with a series of ZooZoos advertisements, during IPL-2 season . The objective was to creatively communicate the differentvalue-added services by Vodafone, like phone back-up, cricket, stock market alerts, fashion tips, and so on. It started off with a series of 30 advertisements which was aired each day during the IPL Season 2.

While the Vodafone ZooZoos were principally led by television, it was truly a 360-degree campaign involving digital, outdoor, retail, radio and experiential media. The campaign was a huge hit in the Indian market resulting in a spike of VAS. An exclusive line of zoozoo merchandise became a regular feature at Shoppers Stop outlets. The campaign was also the most viewed viral in the world.

The launch of a digital campaign wherein a Facebook App allowed users to guess what antics the zoozoos were up to in the new television commercials. The concept was to show three different ad lms in the Facebook App, till a point when the lm stopped and the users were prompted to guess what would happen next. The Facebook users then could type in the text eld, their version of how the commercial should proceed and end. Vodafone then gave away its zoozoo merchandise (T-shirts) and a BlackBerry Storm each week to the participants. Thus, in this way Vodafone were able to create a buzz amongst the Zoozoo fans on Facebook and was able to give them the rst taste of the TV commercials.

Role of ZooZoo ads in understanding the transformation of Vodafone from basic voice transfer to 3G services

The advertisement based on the Superhero ZooZoo, communicating the launch of Vodafone 3G services in India. The advertisements showed ZooZoos as Superman with a Vodafone 3G logo. The super ZooZoos are able to y, stop a running train, run at the highest speed, and even stop lightning from hitting the other ZooZoos.

Fact or Fiction?, UFO or Alien?, Bird or Plane? Dream or Reality? are some of the punchy lines in the new superhero series of ads. Each of these advertisements comes with a short storyline and a message. The ZooZoos have emerged as the best brand ambassadors for the Vodafone brand so far. They will always be remembered for their simple, smart, and swift strategy to success, the strategy living up to the brands image of great creative and clever marketing.

Story behind creation of ZooZoo

The entire concept of ZooZoo ads was conceived by Ogilvy & Mather, and the ads were shot and produced by Nirvana Films in South Africa. The making of ZooZoos advertisements has its own history. The idea was to make real people look like cartoon characters. Thin women and children from the local theatres were chosen to wear appealing costumes. They were covered in layers of white fabric. Each facial expression was made of rubber and pasted on the actors to cut down on time and cost. The sets were made larger than life to make the characters look small. While the body was made using a special material stuffed with foam in some places like the stomach, the head was created using a harder material called Perspex. The entireshoot cost about Rs 3crore (Rs 30million) for the 30 different ads. It was money well spent and the brand building exercise worked wonders.

Vodafones promotional marketing efforts

To promote its new bonus card offer which was priced at Rs 4, Vodafone came out with a new advertisement featuring an animated parrot. The ad-lm highlights the fact of how nothing is available for four rupees in the present day. However, Vodafone launched a bonus card at Rs 4 targeting the users with lesser usage.

The initiative involved two different challenges Vodafone Race to Fame Life in the Fast Lane and Vodafone Drive into the Big League.

Vodafone Race to Fame offered the four winners two consumers and two global enterprise customers, a once in a lifetime opportunity, to spend the weekend with the VMM team during the motor racing event scheduled to be held at Noida. The contest involved the Vodafone customers and global enterprise customers to register themselves on the web site. The selected contestants were then required to compete at Go-Karting tracks where they were tested on their intellectual and physical caliber through various competitive activities.

The second challenge Vodafone Drive into the Big League extended an opportunity to small and medium enterprises to have their logo on the McLaren F1 cars that participated in the motor racing event. The SMEs were nalized based on the growth they registered in the previous three years. Vodafone also hosted some of the other activities like Hot Laps with the VMM drivers and road shows with VMM cars before the grand nale in Delhi.

Yet another effort by Vodafone to connect with youth came in when it tied up with Facebook to create and launch a new handset Vodafone Blue. The phone has been designed in a manner that brings an affordable integrated mobile experience to customers. It is an answer to the youths mobile social networking needs at a pocket friendly price.

Vodafone has come back with the BlackBerry Boys campaign. The new advertisement highlights its reasonably priced plan of BlackBerrys free messaging service, the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) .

The BlackBerry advertisement was launched and had been extremely successful in branding the BlackBerry handset amongst youth. The advertisement positioned the BlackBerry user, whether he was a college going student or a businessman, to be cool and trendy.

The new campaign focuses on the Vodafones latest affordable price plan for prepaid BBM users. It also showcases the popularity and increased usability of BBM amongst youth.

Vodafone has also brought back its beloved character the pug in its new advertisements, once again highlighting the instant connectivity of its network a parameter effectively carried out by the pug. The coming back of the Vodafone Delights campaign that was launched. Running over six weeks, the campaign featured three commercials, in addition to the promotions through radio, print, outdoor, on-ground, and digital media. The commercials highlighted offers from Vodafone such as free gifts every time you visit the store, birthday gifts, Happy Hours. Vodafone came out with an advertisement campaign, inviting its customers and racing enthusiasts to become a part of the VMM Team, Formula 1 Airtel Indian Grand Prix. The campaign taking the animation route to catch the viewers attention, features the joy ride of two animated caterpillars.

Vodafones approach to communication strategy

Vodafones communication impact as seen in the case, Vodafones advertisements always created a high-recall value in the minds of consumers. From the very beginning the company adopts a simplistic approach to educating as well as communicating to consumers about the different characteristics and highlights of the product. Even the promotional efforts by Vodafone strongly reected the brand values dened by the company, namely strong network connection and customer orientation.

Vodafone, so far, adopted a proper blend of strong cognitive and affective message strategies in all form so fits marketing communications. The cognitive message strategies helped Vodafone to present arguments or pieces of information to consumers. The key message of all its marketing communication activities has been about the products attributes or benets. The advertisements so designed have an impact on a persons beliefs and/or knowledge structure.

Affective message strategies in the form of advertisements and other marketing activities have helped Vodafone invoke feelings or emotions and match them with the good, service, or the company. Advertisements with this message strategy have enhanced the likability of the product, recall of the appeal, or comprehension of the advertisement.

The latest Facebook advertisements of Vodafone reect a strong sense of brand ownership amongst customers very much a part of the resonance advertising. The advertisement depicts the importance and necessity of friends to remain connected 247, via the largest social networking website, Facebook. Thus, targeting its existing customers by highlighting the importance of friends in ones life and the necessity to remain connected with them.

Vodafones dilemma

The marketing communication of Vodafone Essar Ltd, so far, has created very strong brand value amongst consumers that of strong customer orientation. Majority of its advertisements focus on this aspect of customer service and/or customer relationship. The entertainment value provided by Vodafone ads has helped the brand occupy an excellent recall value which in turn has resulted in increase of the market share in India a region dominated by a number of telecom players.

Revenue generation in the telecom sector starts when the customers extensively use different services offered by the company. Since its entry in the Indian market, a host of services have been offered by the telecom giant.

The reason for increasing the revenue generation lies in the fact that the increasing customer base results in increase in operational costs the costs of setting the infrastructure and running the telecom operations. And unless the cost of maintaining the infrastructure and services of the existing customers are derived from the revenues earned by the service provider, it would be extremely difcult for Vodafone Essar Ltd to run its business in India. Hence prots can be generated only when the usage rate of customers increases. To improve the usage, therefore, Vodafone requires promoting various services to its existing customers.

The road ahead

With the advent of 3G services in India, and excitement in the generations X and Y demographic about this new found power on their mobile phones, VAS is an area where Vodafone can develop its IMC around promotion to the Indian consumers. Vodafone, therefore, needs to target the Indian youth, who are the most tech savvy population, with efforts into areas that are least propagated under VAS .

Asper PwC Analysis, a large chunk of customers(90percent) have an understanding of VAS usage as entertainment-based services like music, Bollywood videos, internet browsing, e-mails. The more useful services like bill payments, ticket booking, banking transactions, online purchase, stock market trading have a much lower awareness. As far as the usage is concerned, only a select few services like SMS and MMS services, ringtones/wallpapers, listening to music, social networking have been able to penetrate the Indian user base. All the advanced services especially the transactional services are less popular. Services like purchasing products, banking, stock market trading has less usage rates.

Vodafone can integrate the high-end VAS in its communication, to make the consumers accept and use these services. In other words, the future adoption of these services relates closely to the current awareness levels of consumers. Trends show a growing demand for entertainment services followed by high-potential information based VAS such as news updates and medical services over mobile.

Till now Vodafone has promoted and advertised all the popular value-added services in its marketing communications. However, there seems to be some disconnect between the communication objective(s) and the users perception. There needs to be more synchronization between the customer prole and the target mediums where these value-added services can be propagated. Promoting its services in the various social mediums where there is dominance of the Indian youths (18-45 year olds) seems to be a better approach for Vodafone India .

The VAS market in the telecom sector is set to increase in the coming years. Therefore, it becomes imperative for mobile operators to concentrate on the value addition their services are going to bring in the consumers lifestyle. While most of the mobile operators in India at present are concentrating on propagating the entertainment-based services with very less effort on the transactional services, Vodafone can explore this area of VAS.

Some of the value-added services that are expected to show an increased adoption by the consumers includes: mCommerce services; weather updates; news updates; video calling; medical advice; profession updates; educational materials; location-based services to name a few .

The revenue from operations for financial year 2019-20 stood at 44,957.5 crore, as against 37,092.5 crore in 2018-19.

Vodafone Idea said in a statement that its revenue rose 6 per cent compared to the previous quarter driven by prepaid tariff hikes effective December 2019.

"Our focus on rapid network integration, as well as 4G coverage and capacity expansion, has further improved customer experience. We thus continue to lead the league tables on 4G data download speeds across several states, metros and large cities. We have achieved our full opex merger synergy target," said Ravinder Takkar, managing director and CEO, Vodafone Idea.