You are on page 1of 13

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research

Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

ASSESSMENT OF IMPACT OF ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN OF VODAFONE ON THE VIEWERS


ABHIJIT ROY*; DR. SANJIT KUMAR DAS**
*Student of M. Com. 4th Semester, Bhairab Ganguly College, Belghoria, Kolkata-700056. **Reader in Commerce, Bhairab Ganguly College, Belghoria, Kolkata-700056.

ABSTRACT In todays world of competition, firms are selling goods and services through a variety of direct and indirect channels. In mass advertising, marketers are exploring new forms of communication, such as experimental, entertainment, and viral marketing. One such innovative idea is Vodafones Zoozoo campaign. Never in the history of Indian advertising we witnessed a campaign that generated so much interest and curiosity among all the segments of the society whether it young or old.. Vodafone is known for its unique advertisement campaign such as pug, happy to help service and latest released Zoozoo advertisement campaign. As Vodafone was a new brand in India, it had a challenging task to develop its own entity and it has done it in a splendid way. Vodafone has benefitted immensely by the zoozoo campaign and it has been proved as a great marketing story. This paper analyzes the marketing strategies used by Vodafone, the efforts that have been put in the making of Zoozoo, and the impact it had on the customers mind It caught the attention and fancy of the consumers, aroused curiosity, told stories and made people retell the story. KEYWORDS: Advertisement, Impact, Vodafone, Zoozoo. ______________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION Advertising has long been viewed as a method of mass promotion in that a single message can reach a large number of people. But, this mass promotion approach presents problems since many exposed to an advertising message may not be within the marketers target market, and thus, may be an inefficient use of promotional funds. However, this is changing as new advertising technologies and the emergence of new media outlets offer more options for targeted advertising. Advertising also has a history of being considered a one-way form of marketing communication where the message receiver is not in position to immediately respond to the message. In fact, it is expected that over the next 10-20 years advertising will move away from a one-way communication model and become one that is highly interactive. Another characteristic that may change as advertising evolves is the view that advertising does not stimulate immediate demand for the product advertised. That is, customers cannot quickly purchase a product they see advertised. But as more media outlets allow customers to interact with the messages being delivered the ability of advertising to quickly stimulate demand will improve.

148

www.zenithresearch.org.in

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

Spending on advertising is huge. One often quoted statistic by market research firm Zenith Optimedia estimates that worldwide spending on advertising exceeds (US) $400 billion. This level of spending supports thousands of companies and millions of jobs. In fact, in many countries most media outlets, such as television, radio and newspapers, would not be in business without revenue generated through the sale of advertising. While worldwide advertising is an important contributor to economic growth, individual marketing organizations differ on the role advertising plays. For some organizations little advertising may be done, instead promotional money is spent on other promotion options such a personal selling through a sales team. For some smaller companies advertising may consist of occasional advertisement and on a very small scale, such as placing small ads in the classified section of a local newspaper. But most organizations, large and small, that rely on marketing to create customer interest are engaged in consistent use of advertising to help meet marketing objectives. One of the leaders in Indias mobile company, Vodafones aggressive addition of mobile customers and a more stable pricing environment by the end of fiscal 2011 led to revenues of Vodafone India rising by 23.95 per cent to $6.16 billion for the fiscal year ended 31st March 2011 compared to $4.97 billion in the previous fiscal. Vodafone Indias EBITA stood at $1.59 billion and the EBITDA margin was at 25.6 per cent. Voice revenues rose to $4.93 billion while messaging revenues registered at $277.32 million and data revenues at $400.58 million while fixed line revenues were at $11.35 million. The operator had 134.57 million connections in India as of March 31, 2011, of which 95.3 per cent are pre-paid. Vodafone is currently piloting its mobile money transfer platform in India. The platform has over 20 million customers globally. After the launch of ZooZoo ad campaigns Vodafone has added a total of 3.68 million GSM subscribers which is the highest number of new mobile subscribers additions in the month of March 2011. Vodafones GSM subscriber base now reached 134.5 million, as per the COAI data (Table 1). OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY Under the above perspectives the objectives of the study are:
1.

To study the effectiveness and responses of telecom customers towards Vodafone advertisements To find out what type of advertising buyers like most To know the role of advertising on the buying behavior of the customer To find out whether the Indian customers associate with the new Vodafone advertisements www.zenithresearch.org.in

2. 3. 4.

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY To attain these objectives in the first stage we have gone through the websites & journals relevant to this topic. Next for assessing the findings and empirically examining the objectives of the study a sample survey was undertaken through free online surveys in Kolkata. The survey

149

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

was conducted through a structured and guided questionnaire and interaction has been received from various people through website. A focus group study has been conducted to design the customer survey questionnaire with a sample size of 200 respondents of various age groups. For undertaking the statistical analysis and data processing we have used Microsoft Excel. The data processing consisted of office editing, data entry and computer programming. Computer based checks were done to clean the data and to remove inconsistencies. The sample questionnaire has been provided in the Annexure. VODAFONES PROFILE AND ITS ADVERTISING STRATEGY Vodafone is one of the leading global brands and in brand value ranking and it is ranked as the 11th largest telecommunication company in the world and 2nd in Europe. In the same way Vodafone Essar is one of the leading telecommunication service providers in India. It serves about 35 million customers who are located in different part of the country. It was during the year 2007, an UK-based Vodafone Group took over Hutchison Essar in India and renamed as Vodafone Essar. Hutchison Essar was controlled by Li Ka-Shing who was a Hong Kong billionaire. Vodafone paid $11.1 billion in order to get the 67% stake of Hutchison Essar. The acquisition of Hutchison Essar in India gave Vodafone an access to enter one of the fastest mobile growing markets, where the providers add about six million new connections every month. Total number of Vodafone Essar Subscribers: 127,364,342, i.e. 22.88% of the total 556,683,683 Indian mobile phone subscribers (Table 2). Vodafone is known for its unique advertisement campaign such as pug, happy to help service and latest released Zoozoo advertisement campaign. As Vodafone was a new brand in India, it had a challenging task to develop its own entity. The previous name of this Indian company was associated with a pug. Vodafone decided to come with a new persona for itself, so the people of the country can associate it with the company. The company came with a brilliant persona for itself, which was very apt for it, The Zoozoos. Zoozoos are advertisement characters promoted by Vodafone during the Indian Premier League Season 2 (IPL). Zoozoos are white creatures with ballooned bodies and egg heads who are used to promote various value added services of Vodafone. Each ad used a story which was enacted by the Zoozoos. These ads though look animated are actually real humans in the Zoozoo costumes. The Zoozoo advertisements were created in South Africa by Ogilvy & Mather, an international advertising, marketing, and public relations agency and Nirvana Films (Bangalore base company) used some animated characters to make these advertisements. Ogilvy & Mather, were asked by Vodafone to create a series of 3D advertisements which could be aired each day during the IPL Season 2. The ZooZoos became very famous and popular at little time. They spent near Rs. 30 million to make these advertisements. Nowadays it is one of the most admirable advertisements in India. The campaign created the buzz both in the traditional media as well as in social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and video sharing website, YouTube, for example, it has 2 million members on Face book page which is increasing rapidly. According to Neo@Ogilvy (digital arm of O&M) who is responsible for managing ZooZoos Facebook brand ZooZoo fan page has received around 2.6 million page views in comparison to only 0.5 million of IPLT20.com. This ad campaign has several implications from the economic perspective. Vodafone operates in what is known as oligopoly. An oligopoly is a market structure that has unique features because it is characterized by a few sellers and mutual interdependence. It is a market where the each

150

www.zenithresearch.org.in

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

seller tries to outdo the other through what is known as price wars (cutting down prices) and non-price wars. Advertising is part of non-price war where a firm tries to outdo its competitors through marketing and/or advertising strategies to generate mass appeal. Zoozoos are part of a unique and innovative advertisement strategy aimed at outdoing the strategies of Vodafone s competitors. By the means of ZooZoo Vodafone has tried to represent an image of the urban common man who is the main drive force behind the increased usage of telecom & VAS services in the tele-communication industry. Through ZooZoo character they have tried to showcase how the various offered by Vodafone can be useful for an urban common man. What Vodafone did was they projected the usage of their VAS services through various advertisements based on different themes as per the product (VAS) that they were offering. The various services offered by Vodafone such as chota recharge, group SMS service, busy alert service, fashion tips, recharge anywhere, bhakti songs, stock alert, voice SMS etc were shown to the viewers not by normal advertisement ways but through some funny & catchy ZooZoo ads which were successful in immediately drawing the attention of urban population including all age groups. As far as the reach of the advertisement is concerned, this advertisement campaign could have been made more effective by taking into account the rural population of our country. In all these ZooZoo ads, since Vodafone tried to promote all the Value Added Services offered by them, clearly the targeted customers were the people who would use these Value Added Services. Hence in their ads Vodafone tried to showcase all the VAS services that they have to offer to the customers through different theme specific advertisements. Each of the advertisement was specific to one particular VAS service & revolved around the same to make the customer understand the service. Because of the uniqueness & attractiveness of these ZooZoos, Vodafone was able to draw the attention of the audiences quickly towards these ads & these ads became soon very popular & thus the VAS offered by Vodafone. MAJOR FINDINGS 1. Out of the 200 respondents 84 % of the respondents are male and 16% of the respondents are female. 2. Out of the 200 respondents 54 % are graduates, 32 % are post graduates, 14% are intermediate while there are no respondents who are only matriculate. www.zenithresearch.org.in 3. Out of 200 respondents 54 % are currents using Vodafone, 20 % are BSNL subscribers, 12 % are Airtel subscr ibers while 14 % are using other services. 4. 42 % of the respondents have been using their current service for more than 4 years. From this it can be said that majority of the respondents who are Vodafone subscribers having been using Vodafone for more than 4 years. 5. 72 % of the respondents have said that advertisements do a play a role in deciding their service providers while 28 % are not influenced by advertisements. From this it is concluded that advertisement is one of the key marketing strategy that ess ential for any company or firm to capture a good market position and compete with its competitors in order to maintain

151

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

its position. 6. 32.43 % of the respondents said that advertisements helps them in knowing the attributes of the service while 21.62 % said that advertisements helps them to compare services with other providers. 40.54 % of the respondents said that advertisements help them in all the above 7. 90 % of the respondents have said that the advertisements of Vodafone attract them the most than any oth er service provider. 8. 74 % of the respondents have said that the advertisements of Vodafone attract them very well while 24 % said that the ads attract them somewhat well. Only 2% of the respondents are not at all attracted by the advertisements of Vodafone. Hence it can be said that the advertisements of Vodafone attract the majority of the people very well. 9. 98 % of the respondents have recognized the cartoon character named ZooZoo the mascot of Vodafone. From this it can be said that presently people are quite updated on the advertisements. 10. 64 % of the respondents said that the creativity in Vodafone advertisements appeals most while 16 % say that all the mentioned factors appeal to them. From this it can be said that in this modern era creativity in Voda fone ads is the most important factor in Vodafones advertisement campaigns. 11. 90 % of the respondents have been able to associate with Vodafones mascot ZooZoo while only 10 % have not been able to associate. 12. 54 % of the respondents like Vodafone advertise ments which are related to discount schemes, 26 % looks for good network ads while only 20 % of the respondents like value added services advertisements. This shows us the increasing competition in the telecom sector as people go for those services which costs less to them & hence service providers has to constantly provide new discount schemes in order to attract the customers. www.zenithresearch.org.in 13. 72 % of the respondents like ZooZoo as the Vodafone mascot while 24 % like previous mascot i.e. the pug as the Vodafone mascot. T his shows that people like the creativity shown through the ZooZoo in the Vodafone advertisement campaigns. 14. Although 72 % of the respondents like the ZooZoo more than the pug, but still 78 % of the respondents miss the pug who was the previous mascot. It shows that Vodafone advertisement campaigns have not only attracted the people with the concept of ZooZoo but has done the same with the concept of pug as the mascot over the years. 15. 64 % of the respondents are attracted more towards the services of Vodafone just because of the advertisements. This shows the positive impact of

152

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

Vodafone advertisement campaigns on the people. 16. 56% of the respondents feel that with the launch of mobile number portability Vodafone will be able to attract more customers while 44 % of the respondents do not feel the opposite. But with the introduction of mobile number portability service which allows a customer to change over to a new service without changing their present number 56 % of the respondents feel that Vodafone customer will increase. 17. 88 % of the respondents do not want Vodafone to change its mascot while 12 % want Vodafone to change its mascot and go for movie stars or sports person as its mascot. From this it can be concluded that in this modern era people prefer a 3D creation of ZooZoo more than any famous movie stars or sports person as the Vodafone mascot. In spite of Abhishek Bachan endorsing IDEA and Ranbir Kapoor endorsing TATA DO CO MO Vodafone has made a bigger impact on people with ZooZoo as its mascot and hence i t can be said that expensive brand ambassadors can be avoided SWOT ANALYSIS STRENGTHS Vodafone operates in an oligopoly market which is characterized by few sellers and a huge number of buyers. In this market each seller tries to outdo the other through price wars and nonprice wars. Here advertisement plays an important role because it is a part of non-price war where a firm tries to outdo its competitors and win it through extensive marketing and advertising strategies to generate mass appeal. Vodafone has been able to penetrate in the market as social networking site and the consumer has accepted it. The most important thing is that Zoozoos are part of a unique and innovative advertisement strategy that gave Vodafone an advantage in the competitive market. Due to all these factors, the campaign has able to penetrate in media as well as social networking sites. Zoozoo is a semi alien semi-human character living in earth-like places which are very simple and expressive. They laugh aloud, cry loud and have a child like simplicity around them so the success of zoozoo is the success of minimalism and simplicity. The zoozoo campaign has been able to generate a lot of curiosity among the viewers. The fan club of zoozoo touched to around 75,000 and various interactive quizzes came up in these days as evident in the wallpapers and screensavers in the cell phones. All these transformed into a great viral marketing event. Another important advantage is that it involves very low cost in the implementation of the zoozoo campaign as compared with the benefits it generated was infinitesimal. There is no celebrity was required as a brand ambassador which resulted in a dual advantage. WEAKNESS The advertisements has sometimes creates a feeling of suspicion and weirdness in their minds of the rural viewers where the literacy level is comparatively low. In fact all the advertisements were not very easy to understand because some advertisements have no voice explanations and it is difficult to grasp & understand for the rural people. So clearly the urban & rural population

153

www.zenithresearch.org.in

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

was segmented out & the core target of this advertisement campaign was the educated urban population. The campaign had an undermining effect on the brand Vodafone. OPPORTUNITIES The campaign has been able to break the traditional and conventional ways of advertising through public figures and celebrities. As the advertisements did not make use of celebrities as brand ambassadors, it resulted in savings of huge money. So the use of this concept reduces the cost of service from the part of the company and people may expect to get the service at lower cost. The other companies may also be interested in the success of zoozoo in restructuring their advertisement strategies. THREATS As a result of increasing popularity of ZooZoo people are more interested in the ads rather than the product. It means that people love to enjoy the ZooZoo ads on television rather than use the product. It can also be said that the brand ZooZoo has become more popular than the brand Vodafone. CONCLUSION With the success of Zoozoo, Vodafone India can claim about something that their own. Zoozoo itself has become a phenomenon. The number of Facebook fans of Zoozoo have swelled to 3,07,072 (as on June 17, 2009) far surpassing the number of fans for cricketing and bollywood icons like Sachin Tendulkar and Amitabh Bachchan, legendary superheroes like Superman and even comic characters like Asterix. The real test of effectiveness of Zoozoo lies in its objective achievement. This campaign didnt generate the sales number to justify the return on the massive investment. This campaign will never create the pull for Vodafone value added services or increase revenue to that extent. These were never the objectives of this campaign, therefore we shouldnt judge the effectiveness based on these parameters. What this campaign set out to do is create some much required buzz around the brand and break the clutter among the frenzy surrounding the IPL. ZooZoo advertisements helped Vodafone increase its customer base by 3.8 % in the 1st quarter of 2010.The reason behind the ZooZoos becoming so famous is its familiarity with the cartoons which people used to watch as kids and invokes pleasant memories and fantastical world people used to live as children. It also does not produce bias of any kind (class, creed, religion etc) and hence this advertising strategy of Vodafone has been able to capture the imagination of millions across the country. Each age group is interested in the advertisements promoting various products of Vodafone and hence it is the most interesting ads on TV now. There is no doubt that the Vodafones ad campaign is a big hit and has become popular with everyone from kids to adult. The ad campaigns has given Vodafone a new look that will go a long way in further improving its brand image. The commercials have hit the Indian market like storm and will now probably go into history as one of the most brilliant advertising idea for the industry. The response by Indian audience is phenomenal. Although experts claim that the ads did not achieve the target of increasing VAS usage. ZooZoos have become a brand in themselves with ZooZoo T-shirts and other accessories being sold at retail chains apart from thousands of visits to their YouTube advertisements and over 2 million fans on Facebook pages. ZooZoo is a great marketing story. Vodafone has benefitted immensely by this campaign. It

154

www.zenithresearch.org.in

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

caught the attention and fancy of the consumers, aroused curiosity, told stories and made people retell the story. REFERENCES http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=s066tc81bxj4ahj914529(questionnaire link) http://varinderkaur.instablogs.com/entry/vodafone-zoozoo-a-successful-marketing-strategy/ http://marketingpractice.blogspot.com/2009/05/best-marketing-practice-zoozoo.html http://www.domainofhope.com/2011/03/vodafone-zoozoo-3g-campaign-integrated.html http://www.medianama.com/2011/05/223-fy11-vodafone-india-data-voip-net-neutrality/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZooZoo www.classof1.com www.vodafone.com ANNEXURE TABLE 1 GROUP COMPANY WISE % MARKET SHARE - MAY'2011 Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Name of Company Bharti Airtel Vodafone Essar IDEA BSNL Aircel Uninor Videocon Total Sub Figures 167,065,289 139,426,769 93,754,764 87,618,769 57,061,824 25,386,287 7,054,198 % Market Share 28.31% 23.62% 15.89% 14.85% 9.67% 4.30% 1.20% www.zenithresearch.org.in

155

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

8 9 10 11 12

MTNL Loop Mobile Stel Etisalat All India

5,234,574 3,130,643 3,165,944 1,299,298 590,198,359

0.89% 0.53% 0.54% 0.22% 100.00%

Source: (source- data as on may 11 on COAI website) TABLE 2 Vodafone Subscriber Base Statistics as on January, 2011 Telecom Circle Gujarat Uttar Pradesh(East) Maharashtra West Bengal Tamil Nadu Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh(West) Andhra Pradesh Delhi Karnataka Kerala No. of Subscribers 13,929,246 12,758,139 10,228,352 9,369,243 8,628,589 8,364,850 8,207,919 7,048,449 6,708,922 6,268,492 5,059,894 www.zenithresearch.org.in

156

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

Bihar Kolkata Punjab Haryana Madhya Pradesh Chennai Orissa Assam

4,717,640 4,107,931 3,755,967 3,618,145 2,477,946 1,988,675 1,909,373 1,203,824

Source: (Source- Wikipedia) SAMPLE QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY ON THE IMPACT OF ADVERTISEMENT CAMPAIGNS OF VODAFONE ON THE PEOPLE:

1. NAME ................................................................................................................. ..........

2. ADDRESS ...

3. AGE 4. GENDER

. A. MALE . B. FEMALE

5. PH. NO.

157

www.zenithresearch.org.in

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

6. WHAT IS YOUR EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION? A. MATRICULATE C. GRADUATE B. INTERMEDIATE D. POST GRADUATE

7. WHO IS YOUR CURRENT SERVICE PROVIDER? A. AIRTEL C. IDEA E. OTHERS 8. FOR HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN USING THIS SERVICE? A. LESS THAN 1 YEAR C. 2-4 YEARS B. 1-2 YEARS D. MORE THAN 4 YEARS B. VODAFONE D. BSNL

9. DO ADS PLAY ANY ROLE IN DECIDING YOUR SERVICE PROVIDER? A.YES B. NO

10. IF YES, WHAT ROLE DOES IT PLAY? A. HELPS IN KNOWING THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE SERVICE. B. HELPS IN COMPARING SERVICES WITH OTHER PROVIDERS. C. RE-INFORCES BELIEF ABOUT THE PRODUCT. D. ALL OF THE ABOVE www.zenithresearch.org.in 11. THE ADS OF WHICH SERVICE PROVIDER ATTRACT YOU THE MOST? A. AIRTEL C. IDEA B. VODAFONE D. BSNL

12. HOW WELL THE ADS OF VODAFONE CATCH YOUR ATTENTION? A. VERY WELL B. SOMEWHAT WELL C. NOT AT ALL

158

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

13. CAN YOU IDENTIFY THIS CARTOON CHARACTER?

A. YES

B. NO

14. WHAT ACCORDING TO YOU STANDS OUT IN VODAFONE ADS? A. MESSAGE CLEARITY C. VISUAL IMPACT B. PRODUCT APPEAL D. CREATIVITY

15. AS AN INDIAN ARE YOU ABLE TO ASSOCIATE WITH VODAFONE MASCOT ZOOZOO? A. YES B. NO

16. WHAT TYPE OF VODAFONE ADS ATTRACTS YOU THE MOST? A. GOOD NETWORK ADS B. DISCOUNT SCHEME ADS C. VALUE ADDED SERVICES www.zenithresearch.org.in 17. WHICH MASCOT YOU LIKE THE MOST IN VODAFONE ADS? A. PUG B. ZOOZOO C. NONE OF THESE

18. DO YOU MISS THE PUG IN TODAYSS ADS? A. YES B. NO

19. DOSE THE ADS OF VODAFONE ATTRACT YOU MORE TOWARDS THE SERVICE? A. YES B. NO

159

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research


Vol.2 Issue 1, January 2012, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

20. WITH THE LAUNCH OF THE NEW MPS SERVICE WILL VODAFONE ATTRACT MORE CUSTOMERS? A. YES B. NO

21. DO YOU WANT ANY SPORTS PERSON OR MOVIE STAR TO REPLACE THE ZOOZOO AS THE VODAFONE MASCOT? A. YES B. NO DECLARATION We promise that your identity will be kept confidential and will be used for the research purpose only. Place: Date: .. _____________________________________ (Signature of the Investigator)

160

www.zenithresearch.org.in

You might also like