Advertising & Sales Promotion Management

Submitted to:
Dr. Jyotsna Mukherjee Submitted by:
Mohd Tahir
Poonam Kumari

IILM Institute for Higher Education

Executive summary

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Advertisement and sales promotion are the part and parcel of the marketing strategies of every
company. They play an important role in growth of any organization.

In this project we study the advertisement and sales promotion strategies of Micromax mobile.

Through the very clever strategies of micromax enable it to achieve 10% market share and 3 rd
position in the mobile handset manufacturing industry in India in just a time period of less than 3
years.

It is utilizing the integrated market communication tools like sponsoring events (cricket match
and film awards), advertising through hoardings, TV, radio etc very effectively.

They have become more appealing to their target customers i.e. youth by having akshay kumar
as their brand ambassador.

Micromax is very different from other players as everyone initial target the urban market than
tap the rural market but micromax initially it target the rural market than move to urban market
and it is very successful in implementing this.

The three advertising objectives of micromax mobile are

 To create awareness
 To increase recall of their brand
 To create brand equity.

Table of content

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Serial Particulars Page No
No
1 Executive summary 2

2 Introduction-Micromax 4

3 IMC Tools 5

4 Advertising Agency 7

5 Consumers 8

6 Source, Massage & Channel factor 9

7 Advertising objectives & budget 11

8 Creative aspect 12

9 Conclusion & findings 14

10 Recommendation 15

11 References 16

Introduction
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The mobile phone market in India is worth 130 million handsets annually. While the big players
like Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson make up for 70% share, the market has
of late seena slew of domestic firms such as Micromax, Karbonn and Entex making large inroads
and new established brands like Videocon and Onida entering the field.

Micromax, started operations in 1991 as an embedded software design firm, but was
incorporated as accompany in 1998, when it branched out as a distributor of computer
peripherals such as printers, monitors, scanners from manufacturers such as LG, Sony Inc., Dell
Corp.

To day, Micromaxi s one of the leading Indian Telecom Companies with 23 domestic offices
across the country and international offices in Hong Kong, USA, Dubai and now in Nepal. With
a futuristic vision and an exhaustive R&D at its helm, Micromax has successfully generated
innovative technologies that have revolutionized the telecom consumer space.

Micromax is on a mission to successfully overcome the technological barriers and constantly

engender “life enhancing solutions”.

The company’s vision is to develop path-breaking technologies and efficient processes that
incubate newer markets, enliven customer aspirations and continue to make Micromax a trusted
market leader amongst people. The Micromax ideology stems from its rooted belief in
‘Innovation’ and delivering “nothing short of the best”

Micromax has a lot of interesting and thoughtful products to its credit on their versatile product
portfolio. It was the first to introduce in the market,

 Handsets with 30 days battery backup

 Handsets with Dual SIM / Dual Standby
 Handsets Switching Networks (GSM - CDMA) using gravity sensors
 Aspirational Qwerty Keypad Handsets
 Operator Branded 3G Handsets
 OMH CDMA Handsets, etc. .

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One of the major aspects that contribute towards the substantial monthly growth of Micromax is
its 80% sales in the rural areas. After building a strong presence in the rural market, where the
prominence of both subscribers and operators is rapidly increasing, Micromax’ is now
progressively moving towards establishing its foothold in the competitive urban towns as well.

The news further elaborates that Citigroup Global Markets Inc. has confirmed Jain’s assertion in
a 3February.2010 report, which said Micromax had a 10% market share, putting it at No. 3
behind Nokia and Samsung, which had 12-13%.

IMC tools used by MICROMAX

Advertising is the one of the biggest tool to development of integrated marketing

communication. So the Micromax uses IMC tools to promote the product and build the strong
image of the brand in the consumers mind. Integrated Marketing Communication ( IMC) is the
practice of unifying all marketing communication tools so the send a consist, persuasive massage
promoting company goals.

With a 360 degree advertising and marketing strategy sketched out, the company has an
optimistic outlook for the telecom consumer space. Currently present in more than 40,000 stores
across the country, the company plans to have an aggressive market incursion to reach out to its
customers through 70,000 operational stores in the coming year

The following tools of IMC are being used by Micromax:

Events and experiences

For marketing of its products the company is riding on two enduring Indian obsessions--sports
and films--to build its brand.

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Following up on its association with the popular Twenty20 cricket Indian Premier League (IPL),
Micromax, a brand that is less than three years old, has become the title sponsor of almost all
tournaments and series of which India is a part, including the recently concluded Asia Cup, the
forthcoming India-Sri Lanka Test series and the India-New Zealand-Sri Lanka tri-series in
August.

The objective behind the cricket "roadblock", as such behavior is termed in advertising, is to
drive brand awareness and recall. The company believes that while cricket may boost a brand
instantly, viewers may still not remember the brand after the match or the tournament. Even if
consumers remember a series, they may not remember the advertisers. That's when they thought
of a roadblock and decided to sponsor all cricketing properties post IPL.

Bollywood is also a major platform for the brand, which is targeting consumers between 18 and
27 years. Bollywood's most bankable star Akshay Kumar was signed on as the brand ambassador
six months ago. More recently, his wife Twinkle Khanna was engaged to promote Micromax's
bling phone that comes with Swarovski crystals and a vanity mirror. To push its association with
films, the firm also sponsored the IIFA (International Indian Film Academy) Awards held in Sri
Lanka, where Micromax recently launched its phones. The brand is now ready to enter
Bangladesh and West Asia.

Advertising
Broadcast media micromax use television to broadcast their advertisements.

Apart from using cricket, films, celebrity micromax also advertise through news papers.

They also utilize hoarding and bill boards to advertise their products.

Prime site recently kicked off a month-long campaign for Micromax mobile phones in Delhi,
executed mostly through hoardings. Going further, this promotion will be extended to the other
regions of northern India as well.

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On the brief and objective of the campaign. The city of launch was Delhi to start with, and post
which we did the launch in Patna and Jaipur. Indore is next in line. There are more cities where
the campaign will be launched in the near future for which we would be briefed accordingly.”

All the Medias used by micromax are very carefully selected as to reach its target audience and
through each medium the innovative aspect of the product is portrayed.

Advertising Agency

Agency: - Lowe Lintas

Lowe Lintas is one of the India’s largest and most storied communication groups. Its founded in 1939 as a
part of Hindustan Lever. Headed by Chairman and Chief Creative Officer R. Balakrishnan (Balki) and
CEO Charles Cadell, Lowe Lintas employs over 650 people across eight divisions and nine cities all over
India.

Lowe Lintas is a full service agency, it provides all the service to its clients like market research,
production, designing, selecting and purchasing media.

Today, Lowe Lintas India is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Interpublic Group, and one of the star
offices in the Lowe Worldwide network. Headquartered out of London, Lowe Worldwide has over 80
offices in 73 countries and a client roster that includes Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, Ericsson,
Sharp, TATA, Saab and many more.

Lowe Lintas India leads global and regional communication for several Unilever and Johnson’s Baby
brands.

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 Consumers
Micromax has divided its target audience into three categories - the rural sector, the urban youth
(18 to 27 years) and the high profile users. Micromax is solely targeting the rural segment right
now - and why not? After all, it promises the maximum number of consumers and all they
demand from a handset is regular features at an affordable price. The youth segment is the
second most important segment, whom the brand will appease with innovative features such as a
memory card with more capacity, better music and camera quality and a trendy face value. For
the third segment or the premium class 'technological innovation' will be the catchword.

One of the major aspects that contribute towards the substantial monthly growth of Micromax is
its 80% sales in the rural areas. 

 After building a strong presence in the rural market, where the prominence of both subscribers
and operators is rapidly increasing, Micromax’ is now progressively moving towards
establishing its foothold in the competitive urban towns as well.

It was in 2008 that Micromax ventured into the mobile handset market. The brand wanted to
create a base before taking on the large players. Hence as a go-to- market strategy, Micromax
concentrated on the rural market first. It was a different move altogether since most of the
marketers tend to concentrate on the urban markets then move to the rural markets.

Micromax launched its first phone in the rural market with a very unique USP- 30 days battery
standby time. The brand was launched from a consumer insight that most of the rural households
do not get enough electricity to recharge phones on a daily basis . Hence a phone with a 30 day
battery standby would be a worthwhile differentiation. The first product was a big success. The
first product Micromax X1i priced at Rs 2150 was lapped up by rural market.

The success of X1i enthused the company to go aggressively into the market. But tapping the
rural market is not an easy task. There is severe logistics pressure in servicing these markets. One
of the first things that Micromax did was to establish the distribution network. According to a
report in Forbes India (March 5, 2010), Micromax created a distribution network comprising of

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34 super distributors, 450 distributors and around 55,000 retailers. The brand could also take
advantage of the inroads made by other brands into advantage

Source, Message and Channel Factors

Source:

Celebrity: micromax has used Akshay kumar and very recently his wife twinkle khanna to
endorse their brand. these celebrities are used as brand ambassador because of the following
reasons

Familiarility: akshay kumar is a very famous celebrity in Indian villages as well as urban
areas.so he is very familiar to the target audience i.e. the youth. So it was a good decision to get
him to endorse this brand.

Likeability: many of the youth in India resemble themselves with akshay; hence there are great
chances that if he endorses this brand, it will become more popular among youth

Message

Through all the medias microamax is conveying a very clear message that we are best in
manufacturing phones which have innovative features which makes yours life simpler and at a
very affordable price.

Channel factors

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The different channels that micromax is using for advertisement are :

Broadcast: It is using television as well as radio to reach the target audience. it use personal channel
as all of its advertisement is focused to the youth .

Print media: it is creating a lot of noise by using news papers, in these advertisements it also focuses
on innovation of their product.

Support Media: Micromax uses also support media to reach their target customers.

Clutter: since it a industry where a lot of competition exists .every company is using all these
medias too, hence a lot of advertisements are aired by different companies, which creates a lot of
disturbance.

Advertising Objectives and Advertising Budget

When micromax was launched in 2008 the main objective of the advertisements was to create
awareness about the brand as it was a new entrant in the market and very established brands like
Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericson were present. So, the initial objective of the advertisement
campaign was to catch the attention of the customers and to create awareness about the brand.

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This phase of creating brand awareness was carried out for 12 – 18 months from the launch of
the phone.

After that the company realized that awareness was created among the customers but they were
not able to recall their brand, hence they shift their focus to brand recall. For this they have
sponsored a lot of cricket events and film events.

Now since they have attained 10% market share and reach at the 3 rd place in mobile handset
manufacturers they must focus on creating brand value. For this they have sign up with Akshay
kumar as their brand ambassador.

In short the advertisement objectives of micromax are

 To create awareness
 To increase recall of their brand
 To create brand equity.

Advertisement budget
Micromax, is all set to shell out a whopping Rs 100 crore for its brand building initiative. It is
targeting a wide base of new and existing subscribers, using a 360 degree media approach via
multiple platforms. It has allotted Rs 60 crore for ATL (above the line) advertising, of which
print will take the maximum share, followed by TV and radio. Another Rs 40 crore will go into
the BTL (below-the-line) initiatives.

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 Creative aspects

The company is very innovative and creative as it develop new products with innovative
features.

Most of the brand promotion for Macromax is centered around products. We havn't seen a
corporate brand building campaign from Micromax. The ads are for individual products
highlighting the product feature.

Micromax has the tagline “Nothing Like anything " which initially appeared confusing. Perhaps
the brand wants to convey that every product from Micromax has something unique. It is not just
like any other product.

The brand's promotions, although heavy, is a big let down. Some of the campaigns are good but
most are below par. For example, the Micromax Face book ad was outright disgusting. Most of
the campaigns like Gravity, MTV , and EEZPad were very ordinary basic ads. There was no
brand building theme behind those ads. They talked about the product and that is it. I feel a
visible lack of creativity behind those ads.

In a big marketing move, Micromax roped in the Bollywood Action hero Akshay Kumar as the
brand ambassador. This move is going to boost the brand recall of Micromax to new heights.
Akshay Kumar has strong equity both in urban and rural markets. The association with such a
big star will also have a positive impact on the image of Micromax. The brand can now
overcome the perception of a low price product.

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But the first campaign featuring Akshay Kumar was nothing but pure noise. The new
Gamolution handset was supposed to be a game changer for Micromax. But the campaign was a
big let down. With a star like Akshay, the brand could have done much more rather than some
funny noises and acrobatics. I think the agency was stuck in a stereotype as to how to use
Akshay Kumar

The new game handset uses the motion- sensor technology with Bluetooth ( as I understand). So
one can play games using the computer and handset. I don't think that the ads were in anyway
doing justice to the brand's intention. Motion Sensor games are not new to the Indian markets but
playing games on a PC using mobile is something new. I am not sure whether the ad essentially
communicated the innovation.

A very poorly made ad like this will do more harm to the image of Micromax. The brand may
get lot of eyeballs due to the ' noise ' and celebrity power, but a low quality ad will reflect in the
image perception of Micromax.

There is a risk of the brand perceived not as an aspiration brand but a ordinary price warrior if it
does not focus on the quality of the communication .

Micromax now has a wonderful chance of moving up the ladder. With a good product range, reasonable
pricing base and a high profile celebrity, the brand could have positioned itself as an aspiration brand.

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 Conclusion and finding

 Micromax is a very innovative company as it launches mobile phones with very unique
and innovative features.
 It has utilized events and experience as part of their communication strategy to enhance
the recall rate and awareness level.
 Its advertisement campaign was oriented to the rural market than the urban.
 It take a right decision to sign Akshay kumar to endorse their brand as this will help them
to create brand equity.
 It does not make very creative advertisements; they simply narrate the features of the
phone.
 They have planed to spent a huge amount of Rs. 100 crore on advertisement and
promotions.

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 Recommendations
 Now they have achieved a good market share, so now their advertisement should
focus on brand building.

 They don`t develop very creative advertisements, sometimes their advertisements

are mere noises like the advertisement featuring Akshay kumar. They must add
creativity to their advertisements.

 The tag line is very confusing; a new tag line which can be understood easily
must be incorporated.

 The brand's promotions, although heavy, is a big let down. Some of the
campaigns are good but most are below par. For example, the Micromax Face
book ad .hence quality of the advertisement must be improved.

 There is a risk of the brand perceived not as an aspirational brand but a ordinary
price warrior if it does not focus on the quality of the communication.

 Micromax would do well if it could bring in some class in their campaigns.

 Micromax as a brand should be developed focusing on the core brand values like
innovation and value orientation.

 When the product range widens, it may not be practical to sustain individual
campaigns. So it is time for Micromax to position the Family Brand and develop a
brand identity

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 References
o http://www.micromaxinfo.com/

o www.southasiablog.com/2010/.../micromax-q7-in-india-
price-and.html
o http://epaper.livemint.com/
o http://www.afaqs.com/perl/news/story.html?sid=25698
o http://marketingpractice.blogspot.com/2010/03/micromax-
nothing-like-anything_16.html

Book:-

o Advertising Principles and practice (John Burnet)

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