It was an year of makeovers and the biggest one was the Hutch pink giving way to the Vodafone red. The marketing brain behind it: Harit Nagpal
‘You and I in this beautiful world’ went the jingle and the Indian junta went fida over the cute pug and the innovative manner in which Hutch chose to communicate its network efficiency. But in May 2007, the world telecom giant Vodafone paid a hefty $10 billion for Hutch and bought it out ‘pug’, ‘boy’ and ‘network’.
A re-branding exercise was the need of the hour
and leading the change was Vodafone Essar’s Marketing and New Business Director, Harit Nagpal. And what a brand transition it was, accompanied by an even bigger media blitz. Overnight hoardings, signboards and kiosks across the country changed from the Hutch pink to the Vodafone red; the little pug hogged the ad space on the telly tube telling consumers that change is indeed good; and the rest is the stuff of legends. Harit believes that the transition is probably the largest brand change ever undertaken in India and arguably as big as any in the world. “It is even larger than our own previous brand transitions as it touches over 35 million customers, across 400,000 shops and thousands of our own and our business associates’ employees,” avers Harit, who joined forces with O&M to device the communication change that was simple, yet effective! Aimed at making the Indian masses aware of Hutch’s new makeover, the campaign continued till the message sunk in, to be followed immediately by the magic box commercial, which for the first time spoke about bundling handset in the GSM space. Harit Nagpal certainly likes to waste no time!
Rajiv Rao, the man behind the ‘pug as mascot’ concept for Hutch stepped in to handle the brand transformation to Vodafone. 4Ps B&M caught up with O&M’s creative genius…
How has the year been for you so far?
It has been a fantastic year. It involved new challenges as it is a new brand altogether that we had to manage but these are still the early days for us. We did some great work on Hutch commercials and then became part of this mega change exercise. Everyone by now knows that Hutch has become Vodafone. It has been two-three months since the launch of Vodafone brand campaign and we are having great fun working.
Telecom is a cluttered sector with hardly any product differentiation. Will the Vodafone positioning change to adapt to new market realities?
As Vodafone is a new brand altogether,
we can see more excitement in the category through this. In 2008, there would be a lot of new communication and the Vodafone brand would go beyond the pug. However, network would always be a part of the package and whenever we have to talk about the network aspect of the brand, one would see the pug, but in the others it would depend on really what message are we trying to get across to the end customer. Also get set to see new products from Vodafone coming into India.
Vodafone’s latest campaign revolves around its value added service of blocking callers. What’s the rationale?
When one talks about blocking certain callers, it is not seen as a very good thing. But we had to talk about this in a nice manner and not offend any one. So we have made use of illustrations to infuse the element of fun, where we talk that now Vodafone enables you to block people from whom one does not wish to receive any calls.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
‘You and I in this beautiful world’ went the jingle and the Indian junta went fida over the cute pug and the innovative manner in which Hutch chose to communicate its network efficiency. But in May 2007, the world telecom giant Vodafone paid a hefty $10 billion for Hutch and bought it out ‘pug’, ‘boy’ and ‘network’.
A re-branding exercise was the need of the hour
and leading the change was Vodafone Essar’s Marketing and New Business Director, Harit Nagpal. And what a brand transition it was, accompanied by an even bigger media blitz. Overnight hoardings, signboards and kiosks across the country changed from the Hutch pink to the Vodafone red; the little pug hogged the ad space on the telly tube telling consumers that change is indeed good; and the rest is the stuff of legends. Harit believes that the transition is probably the largest brand change ever undertaken in India and arguably as big as any in the world. “It is even larger than our own previous brand transitions as it touches over 35 million customers, across 400,000 shops and thousands of our own and our business associates’ employees,” avers Harit, who joined forces with O&M to device the communication change that was simple, yet effective! Aimed at making the Indian masses aware of Hutch’s new makeover, the campaign continued till the message sunk in, to be followed immediately by the magic box commercial, which for the first time spoke about bundling handset in the GSM space. Harit Nagpal certainly likes to waste no time!Rajiv Rao, the man behind the ‘pug as mascot’ concept for Hutch stepped in to handle the brand transformation to Vodafone. 4Ps B&M caught up with O&M’s creative genius…
How has the year been for you so far?
It has been a fantastic year. It involved new challenges as it is a new brand altogether that we had to manage but these are still the early days for us. We did some great work on Hutch commercials and then became part of this mega change exercise. Everyone by now knows that Hutch has become Vodafone. It has been two-three months since the launch of Vodafone brand campaign and we are having great fun working.
Telecom is a cluttered sector with hardly any product differentiation. Will the Vodafone positioning change to adapt to new market realities?
As Vodafone is a new brand altogether,
we can see more excitement in the category through this. In 2008, there would be a lot of new communication and the Vodafone brand would go beyond the pug. However, network would always be a part of the package and whenever we have to talk about the network aspect of the brand, one would see the pug, but in the others it would depend on really what message are we trying to get across to the end customer. Also get set to see new products from Vodafone coming into India.Vodafone’s latest campaign revolves around its value added service of blocking callers. What’s the rationale?
When one talks about blocking certain callers, it is not seen as a very good thing. But we had to talk about this in a nice manner and not offend any one. So we have made use of illustrations to infuse the element of fun, where we talk that now Vodafone enables you to block people from whom one does not wish to receive any calls.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist)
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