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Redefining the way mobile phones are sold!

Sharper TG definition & customized


communication to drive business goals
Best Media Strategy – Consumer Durables – Category Code A(b)

Niche Media (Drives) Mass


Sales
You don’t need mass media to create mass impact

THE MARKETING OBJECTIVE


In times of recession only ROI matters!
Mobile phone is one of the hottest selling product categories in India today. With
a mobile subscriber base growing at over 6 million every month, the
demand for a wide variety of handsets has grown manifold in the last 3 years.

Over the years Nokia has strengthened its equity in the entry segment many a
fold, but it is losing consideration in the lifestyle & premium segment within the
urban youth. Other players like Sony Erickson & Samsung had started to put all
their weight behind this segment (refer to table below)

The replacement market mantra for Nokia was always “Once a Nokia, Always a
Nokia”. With this seeing a shift to other handset manufacturers, there was a
need to retain Nokia customers (sizeable chunk totaling up to 70% of the
market) changing phone needs to another Nokia handset and not let them slip
away to competition. The marketing objective hence for the new 5800
XpressMusic Touch Phone Launch was defined very specifically for existing
Nokia customers. The marketing objective for existing Nokia customers was -
“UPGRADE TO TOUCH”. The overall sales lead target across all media was
30,000 for the 2 week pre booking phase.
THE TARGET AUDIENCE

Whom were we speaking to?

The task was to reach out to the existing Style Leaders category (TG as defined
by Nokia) of users who have the following attributes:

Style Leaders

Brand seekers – very knowledgeable about the mobile phone market


From medium to very high design involvement – among the first to buy a new
mobile phone design – would feel embarrassed if it looked outdated
Would like to have several handsets for different occasions – the mobile phone
is a social tool that reflects their position in society
Very high replacement rate (average of 27 months)
Prepaid users – over-representation of bills paid by company
Own and prefer Nokia
Price role – Pay as much as necessary to have the handset desired
Aged between 25 and 34, managers with university level of education
THE SITUATION ANALYSIS

TG overexposure
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic TG today is overexposed to various product
communications not just across product categories but even within mobile
phones as a category. Practically every single handset launch in India by any of
the manufacturers is visible to all whether or not it is relevant to them. The
average TG is exposed to at least 16 different mobile phone advertising
at any given point in time.

Nokia’s plight…

Media spillover problem

There was a pressing need for sharp targeting as media had a huge spillover
problem for Nokia as a brand. It was imperative that a media solution be created
that minimizes the quantum of wastage as stated below.

Medium Spillover
TV 62%
Print 21%
Radio 61%
A perspective on the category based on competition
The consumers perceive Nokia music phones’ audio quality as lower than that
of Sony Ericsson.
Music phone brand preference for Nokia phones (except Nseries) is therefore
lower than that of Sony Ericsson
Consumers believe that Apple iPhone is the current benchmark for touch-
screen UI and experience

With such large-scale fragmentation and over exposure, there was a need to
treat every TG segment within Nokia personally and speak to each one of them
in a language that they would understand and most importantly find relevant.

Redefining the TG

The communication objective was hence customized for different user groups
within the Nokia family as well as for competition with a single minded objective
of making it more relevant:

Existing XpressMusic Users – Upgrade to “Touch” with better quality sound


Existing Nokia Users with handsets over INR 10,000 who fit the Style Leader
profile – Time to buy a new phone, experience the new 5800 XpressMusic
Non Nokia Users – Time to buy a new phone. Switch to the new 5800
XpressMusic

There was a need to shift focus from reporting media outputs…to


talking business outcomes

Market complexities were driving Nokia to seek out more business intelligence
and recommendations. The present media scenario only enables speaking to
diverse groups of people at once without any valid filter of their existing mobile
phone ownership. This created a dissonance in audience’s mind as an existing
touch phone user was seeing and experiencing the same communication as a
non touch phone user, an existing music phone user was given the same
benefits as a non music phone user making it a one-to-many communication
strategy.

Effective reach vs. Effective frequency/CPRP programs vs. High - Impact buys is
usually everyone’s talking point. But would this help the harried brand managers
struggling to meet quarterly targets at the end of the day?

Hence the media objective was:

“To have a one-to-one conversation with the TG especially when


you are selling to him, what is considered today to be – His Most
Personal Device”
THE MEDIA SOLUTION

The New Approach to Selling Mobile Phones

The key to an effective media strategy in this case was “precision targeting”.

Targeting had to be done based to:

People on the move


Based on what handset they have
Based on their mobile music consumption pattern
Based on demographics
Based on geographic priorities

The only answer to all the media requirements as stated above was the Mobile
Media.

The best way to sell an upgrade is talking to the user while he is


using the product itself
Syndicated research data indicated that the number of mobile phone users to be
targeted as a part of this campaign was over 4,500,000 users who owned
handsets that fit the Nokia targeting parameter of a Style Leader. Clearly since
communication was the touch feature, better music quality, upgraded version of
XpressMusic; the focus on usage of music content consumption, mobile internet
usage for music download purposes was critical. The number of users who were
active on mobile internet for downloads of music and entertainment was about
30% of the targetable base.
What did all this mean?
We suddenly had an absolutely precise base that we could target.
While the user is browsing mobile internet the backend would detect the kind of
handset he is using and will display the relevant ad real time.

Imagine the scenario’s below:

A Sony Ericsson Walkman series user when browsing the internet will see
the communication as below

An existing Nokia user will see the communication as below

An existing XpressMusic earlier version handset user will see the


communication as below
THE RESULT
“Some people dream of success while others wake up and work hard
at it.” – AND WE DID…

1. 60,000 units were sold within the first 3 weeks of the start of the campaign –
3 times more than its closest competition

Handset targeted campaign on mobile specifically contributed to over 25% of


those results despite the loud mass media campaign. While in this category
established benchmarks of lead-to-sale are less than 5%; precision targeting
ensured that the quality of leads were high as the advertising was extremely
personal and relevant to every single person in the TG set resulting in a lead-
to-sale ratio of over 12%.

Nokia is now armed with…


…Handset led targeting to generate more relevant leads
…Customizing communication and delivering a one-to-one
promise
…which created a winning combination
that uplifted sales!
CASESTUDI
ES

Di
scl
aimer
:Thi
scasest
udyi
sfori
nfor
mat
ionalpur
poseonl
yandf
oranydet
ail
scont
act
:
Ki
ngshuk.
Mit
ra@maxusgl
obal
.com

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