These were valuable qualities, but they only took Irritate far enough to establish its presence in the market. As tariffs started dropping, it became necessary for Irritate to appeal to a wider audience. And the various brand-tracking exercises showed that despite all these good things, there was no emotional dimension to the brand -? it was perceived as cold, distant and efficient. Such dive and his team realized that in a business in which customer relationships were the core this could be a major weakness.
The reason with tariffs identical to competitor Avoidance telecoms and roughly the same level of service and schemes, it had now become important for Birth to “humanism” Irritate and use that relationship as a major differentiation. The brand had become something like Lufthansa -? cold and efficient. What they needed was to become Singapore Airlines, efficient but also human. A change in tack was important because this was a time when the cellular market was changing . The leadership series was okay when you were wooing the cryme De la cryme of society.
Once you reached them you had to expand the market so there was need to address to new customers. By that time, Birth was already the leading cellular subscriber in Delhi with a base of 3. 7 lake (it now has 1. 8 million customers). And with tariffs becoming more affordable -? as cell companies started cutting prices -? it was time to expand the market. How could Birth leverage this leadership position down the value chain? Surveys showed that the concept of leadership in the customer’s minds was also changing.
Leadership did not mean directing subordinates to execute orders but to work along with a team to achieve common objectives -? it was, again, a relationship game that needed to be reflected in the Irritate brand. Also, a survey showed that 50 per cent of the new customers choose a mobile phone brand mostly wrought word-of-mouth endorsements from friends, family or colleagues. Thus, existing customer’s an important tool for market expansion and Birth now focused on b alluding closer relationships with them.
That is precisely what the brand tried to achieve through its new positioning under the Irritate “Touch Tomorrow’ brand campaign. This set of campaigns portrayed mobile users surrounded backing family members. Says Saccade: “The new campaign and positioning was des signed dogfight the relationship angle and make the brand softer and more sensitive. ” As it looks to expand its cellular services nationwide -?to eight new circles part from the seven in which it already operates -? Birth is now realizing that there are new compulsions to rework the Irritate brand, and a new exercise is being launched to this effect.
Right now, the company is unwilling to discuss the new positioning in detail. But broadly, the focus is on positioning Irritate as a power brand with numerous regional sub-brands reflecting customer needs in various parts of the country. If Irritate is becoming more humane and more sensitive as a brand, Birth has also understood the tone common brand for all cellular operations might not always ark in urban markets that are now getting increasingly saturated. To bring in new customers, the company decided that it needed to segment the market.
One such 19 age bracket and for those who are “young at heart”. With its earlier positioning, Irritate was perceived as a brand for the well-heeled older customer; there was nothing for younger people. With You topic Irritate hoped to reverse that In order to deliver the concept, Irritate offered rock bottom tariff rates (25 paisa for 30 seconds) at night to you topic customers -? a time when they make the maximum number of calls. It also setup merchandising exercises around the scheme -? like a facial portal for young people to buy things or bid for goods.
The company is now looking at offering other services at affordable prices to this segment which include music downloads on the mobile and bundling SMS rates with normal calls to make it cheaper for young people to use. The other experiment that Birth has worked on is to go in for product segmentation through the Tango brand name. The brand was created to offer mobile users Internet-interface services or what is known as WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). The idea was to bring Internet and mobile in perfect harmony.
The name was chosen from the popular movie title It Takes Two to Tango basically, you need the two services to tango to offer customers a new choice”, says Saccade. This, however, had less to do with the branding exercise as with inefficiency of service (accusingly slow download speeds) and the limited utility of WAP services. Subsequently, the ads were withdrawn, but the company re-iterated that the branding exercise could be revived because Tango will be the brand to offer GAPS services -? or permanent Internet connectivity on the mobile phone -? which Irritate is expected to launch soon. 2.
Brand positioning 2. 2. 1 : Market segmentation Geographical segment (metropolitan & cities India) Demographic segment – middle income groups People age group of 20 to 28 year 2. 2. 2: Target marketing People who living in cities and towns. Poor or middle income group people. Youngsters in big cities. Business me 2. 2. 3: Positioning Creating brands Ads and promotions Promotion for study of poor children’s 2. 2. 4: Marketing mix Price: low price strategy Place: maximum outlets and service centers Product: verities available for various groups Promotion: various schemes for pre-paid and post-paid
