MUMBAI:When HUL’s
‘Kan Khajura Tesan’
campaign came back home with a Gold Lion in the mobile category from Cannes this year,it took the whole industry by surprise.The campaign rolled out by the FMCG giant was an effort to reach
out to the media dark areas. ‘The Kan Khajura
Station’ a 15 minute free, on-demand,
entertainment channel was a service where
people could give a missed call and then get
entertained for free.
The brand created a new media through a
rudimentary mobile phone that brought people
out of media darkness and connected them
with the world. According to the brand, the
activity was done at a cost of Rs 6 per person.
This campaign was executed in Bihar and
Jharkhand.
This is not the first time that the country’s
largest consumer good company had executed
a campaign for people with feature phones in
the country. It can be recalled, couple of years
back the company’s detergent brand Active
Wheel had also used missed call as an
advertising inventory to catch the attention of
consumers in UP and Bihar.
Further to this, the company is now
collaborating with local grocery shops and is
working on making custom-made caller tune as
part of a new marketing initiative. This means
that when a consumer calls up the shop to
place an order he/she will be informed about
various promotions and offers on the various
brands from the house of HUL. According to
economic times, HUL has piloted this initiated
in Mumbai and Delhi.
If studies by International Data Corporation
(IDC) are to be believed feature phones still
hold over 70 per cent of the Indian mobile
market. Experts in the space are optimistic that
the scenario will change the game. A recent
IDC report mentions that India is the fastest-
growing market in Asia-Pacific, with a year-on-
year smartphone shipment growth of over 186
per cent in 1Q 2014.
Is there still a market for advertising on
feature phones in country where
smartphones are growing exponentially?
Digital Quotient COO Vinish Kathuria believes
there is a lot of scope of exploring this market.
According to him, advertising opportunities on
feature phones revolve around text and banner
ads on WAP sites, IVR based outreach and SMS
and missed call strategies which are being used
interestingly even today by many big brands.
Out these advertising options, missed call as
tool looks to be promising to many other
experts. In a recent development, Facebook
announced that it has introduced missed call
inventory to boost its advertising revenues in
India that counts for the second largest user
base for it.
This advertising tool will allow mobile phone
users to click a button that calls an advertiser,
immediately hangs up and then receives a
return call. The return call delivers pre-
recorded audio messages about everything
from sponsored cricket scores to information
about shopping discounts, minimizing data
charges for the user.
The social networking site has partnered with
ZipDial for this. In early tests of the missed
call ads by L’Oreal-owned haircare product
Garnier Men, the ads led to a 2.5 times year-
on-year increase in online sales, according to
Facebook.
When asked how different is it to execute an
advertising campaign on feature phone than on
a smartphone, ZipDial founder and CEO Valerie
R Wagoner mentions, “We don't believe in
thinking of it as advertising on feature phones
but rather advertising to consumers who have
feature phones."
Wagoner thinks media activations with these
set of mobiles can deliver great results. She is
of the opinion that every media whether print,
television, outdoor, or even digital ads should
have a mobile call-to-action to make it
interactive and to drive ongoing engagement
with consumers in a targeted and personalised
way.
“While a QR Code is relevant to less than 1 per
cent of mobile consumers in India, a missed
call is the easiest thing that anyone could do
from any phone,” adds Wagoner.
She informs that ZipDial is collaborating with
Unilever to work on expanding this success
globally across emerging markets.
Apart from this the cost is minimalistic.
Running a campaign on feature phones might
cost a brand anywhere between Rs 3 to 6 lakhs
mentions a senior media planner.
The Roadblocks
Having said that, thought there is a huge
opportunity in using mobile as a broadcast
channel to directly reach consumers, it has to
be done very carefully, especially for
consumers on feature phones.
“Advertising potential is significantly lower on
feature phones because of two main reasons.
One is the limited screen size and phone's
processing makes it harder to offer plethora of
multi media advertising options. Two,
availability of apps and usage of it are
significantly lower. So, in-app advertising, one
of the biggest mobile advertising categories, is
almost non-existent,” says Kathuria.
Brands should never spam users. Wagoner
states, “Blasting SMS or voice calls can be
extremely intrusive. However, SMS and voice
Calls are a very powerful tool when you use
them in combination with protecting consumer
privacy. For example, standard industry
response rates to generic push SMS blasts are
around 0.1-0.2 per cent. However, response
rates to SMS sent to ZipDial followers are
between 9-56 per cent because users give
permission and are in control of the content
they receive.”
It is extremely necessary to have personalised
experience which targets the right message to
the right consumer at the right time that will
successfully lead to behavioural change,
conversions and business impact across this
segment.
”The difference is that there are thousands of
companies designing for smartphones
(especially companies in the West and
developed markets), and there are very few
innovative companies designing and building
good advertising technology for emerging
markets,” concludes Wagoner http://www.indiantelevision.com/mam/marketing/brands/is-there-a-market-for-advertising-on-feature-phones-140802
‘Kan Khajura Tesan’
campaign came back home with a Gold Lion in the mobile category from Cannes this year,it took the whole industry by surprise.The campaign rolled out by the FMCG giant was an effort to reach
out to the media dark areas. ‘The Kan Khajura
Station’ a 15 minute free, on-demand,
entertainment channel was a service where
people could give a missed call and then get
entertained for free.
The brand created a new media through a
rudimentary mobile phone that brought people
out of media darkness and connected them
with the world. According to the brand, the
activity was done at a cost of Rs 6 per person.
This campaign was executed in Bihar and
Jharkhand.
This is not the first time that the country’s
largest consumer good company had executed
a campaign for people with feature phones in
the country. It can be recalled, couple of years
back the company’s detergent brand Active
Wheel had also used missed call as an
advertising inventory to catch the attention of
consumers in UP and Bihar.
Further to this, the company is now
collaborating with local grocery shops and is
working on making custom-made caller tune as
part of a new marketing initiative. This means
that when a consumer calls up the shop to
place an order he/she will be informed about
various promotions and offers on the various
brands from the house of HUL. According to
economic times, HUL has piloted this initiated
in Mumbai and Delhi.
If studies by International Data Corporation
(IDC) are to be believed feature phones still
hold over 70 per cent of the Indian mobile
market. Experts in the space are optimistic that
the scenario will change the game. A recent
IDC report mentions that India is the fastest-
growing market in Asia-Pacific, with a year-on-
year smartphone shipment growth of over 186
per cent in 1Q 2014.
Is there still a market for advertising on
feature phones in country where
smartphones are growing exponentially?
Digital Quotient COO Vinish Kathuria believes
there is a lot of scope of exploring this market.
According to him, advertising opportunities on
feature phones revolve around text and banner
ads on WAP sites, IVR based outreach and SMS
and missed call strategies which are being used
interestingly even today by many big brands.
Out these advertising options, missed call as
tool looks to be promising to many other
experts. In a recent development, Facebook
announced that it has introduced missed call
inventory to boost its advertising revenues in
India that counts for the second largest user
base for it.
This advertising tool will allow mobile phone
users to click a button that calls an advertiser,
immediately hangs up and then receives a
return call. The return call delivers pre-
recorded audio messages about everything
from sponsored cricket scores to information
about shopping discounts, minimizing data
charges for the user.
The social networking site has partnered with
ZipDial for this. In early tests of the missed
call ads by L’Oreal-owned haircare product
Garnier Men, the ads led to a 2.5 times year-
on-year increase in online sales, according to
Facebook.
When asked how different is it to execute an
advertising campaign on feature phone than on
a smartphone, ZipDial founder and CEO Valerie
R Wagoner mentions, “We don't believe in
thinking of it as advertising on feature phones
but rather advertising to consumers who have
feature phones."
Wagoner thinks media activations with these
set of mobiles can deliver great results. She is
of the opinion that every media whether print,
television, outdoor, or even digital ads should
have a mobile call-to-action to make it
interactive and to drive ongoing engagement
with consumers in a targeted and personalised
way.
“While a QR Code is relevant to less than 1 per
cent of mobile consumers in India, a missed
call is the easiest thing that anyone could do
from any phone,” adds Wagoner.
She informs that ZipDial is collaborating with
Unilever to work on expanding this success
globally across emerging markets.
Apart from this the cost is minimalistic.
Running a campaign on feature phones might
cost a brand anywhere between Rs 3 to 6 lakhs
mentions a senior media planner.
The Roadblocks
Having said that, thought there is a huge
opportunity in using mobile as a broadcast
channel to directly reach consumers, it has to
be done very carefully, especially for
consumers on feature phones.
“Advertising potential is significantly lower on
feature phones because of two main reasons.
One is the limited screen size and phone's
processing makes it harder to offer plethora of
multi media advertising options. Two,
availability of apps and usage of it are
significantly lower. So, in-app advertising, one
of the biggest mobile advertising categories, is
almost non-existent,” says Kathuria.
Brands should never spam users. Wagoner
states, “Blasting SMS or voice calls can be
extremely intrusive. However, SMS and voice
Calls are a very powerful tool when you use
them in combination with protecting consumer
privacy. For example, standard industry
response rates to generic push SMS blasts are
around 0.1-0.2 per cent. However, response
rates to SMS sent to ZipDial followers are
between 9-56 per cent because users give
permission and are in control of the content
they receive.”
It is extremely necessary to have personalised
experience which targets the right message to
the right consumer at the right time that will
successfully lead to behavioural change,
conversions and business impact across this
segment.
”The difference is that there are thousands of
companies designing for smartphones
(especially companies in the West and
developed markets), and there are very few
innovative companies designing and building
good advertising technology for emerging
markets,” concludes Wagoner http://www.indiantelevision.com/mam/marketing/brands/is-there-a-market-for-advertising-on-feature-phones-140802
