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Case Study on Vodafone’s Re-Branding Strategies in India: Hutch to
Vodafone
Launch of Vodafone Essar
Vodafone is the world’s leading international mobile communications company. It
presently has operations in 25 countries across 5 continents and 40 partner networks
with over 200 million customers worldwide. Vodafone has partnered with the Essar
Group as its principal joint venture partner for the Indian market. The Essar Group is
a diversified business corporation with interests spanning the manufacturing and
service sectors like Steel, Energy, Power, Communications, Shipping & Logistics and
Construction. The Group has an asset base of over Rs.400 billion and employs over
20,000 people.
Vodafone Essar was launched in India on 21st September 2007. Vodafone was
welcomed in India with the “Hutch is now Vodafone” campaign. The popular and
endearing brand Hutch was transitioned to Vodafone across India. This marked a
significant chapter in the evolution of Vodafone as a dynamic and ever-growing
brand. This brand unveiled nationally through a high profile campaign covering all
important media.
Vodafone, the world’s leading mobile telecommunication company, completed the
acquisition of Hutchison Essar in May 2007 and the company was formally renamed
Vodafone Essar in July 2007. The transition from Hutch to Vodafone is probably the
largest brand change ever undertaken in this country and arguably as big as any in the
world. It is even larger than Hutch’s own previous brand transitions. The migration
from Hutch to Vodafone was one of the fastest and most comprehensive brand
transitions in the history of the Vodafone Group, with 400,000 multi brand outlets,
over 350 Vodafone stores, over 1,000 mini stores, over 35 mobile stores and over
3,000 touch-points rebranded in two months, with 60% completed within 48 hours of
the launch.
The Vodafone mission is to be the communications leader in an increasingly
connected world – enriching customers’ lives, helping individuals, businesses and
communities be more connected by delivering their total communication needs.
Vodafone’s Marketing Strategies: Hutch to Vodafone
Vodafone’s new advertising campaign in India carried on with the same popular pug
that has become a brand ambassador for Hutch. ‘Where ever you go, our network
follows,’ was the previous slogan with the pug following the child wherever he goes.
Now, with Hutchison Essar becoming part of the Vodafone Group, the new campaign
had started with Vodafone Essar earmarking Rs. 2.5 billion on the transition from
Hutch to Vodafone. The main message of the brand transition exercise: The new
Vodafone is the same old Hutch. In the advertisement, the pug sees a new home when
it returns after an outing and feels the change is better. The new catch phrase will be
‘Make the most of now.’
Vodafone had tied up with Star India to run a complete roadblock of its fresh
campaign on the entire network by unveiling the 24-hour nationwide rebranding
campaign. Vodafone used all of the commercial airtime across all 13 channels in five
languages (Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi and English) from 9 pm on 20 September
to 9 pm on September 21. This exercise included TV commercials, transition bumpers
and contest spots to promote the Vodafone Essar brand. Commercial spots had also
been purchased on Sony.
Conventionally awareness for a new brand takes some time to build. However,
Vodafone wanted to achieve this task at the shortest possible time. Hence, Maxus and
Star Network worked closely to address this challenge and came up with the idea
wherein during the day of the launch a complete roadblock on the Star Network
channels was conceptualized. Considering that the Star Network is the lead network
in India, this was the most apt platform for Vodafone launch. This strategy helped not
only in achieving build rapid brand awareness but also breaks the clutter during such
an important launch in the most happening category – telecom. This is a first of its
kind mega media initiative in India by any brand. While the campaign was heavy on
television, it also included all other media vehicles. The print campaign kicked off on
21 September, a day after the television splash.
While the brand campaign had been addressing the transformation, the Company, on
the other hand was swiftly preparing for a price war in the Indian telecom space.
Indeed, it was preparing to provide mobile handsets to new subscribers at ultra-cheap
prices, ranging from about $19 to $25.
Vodafone Essar launched low priced cell phones in India under the Vodafone brand,
and also co-branded handsets sourced from major global vendors. By bringing in
millions of low-cost handsets from across the globe into India, Vodafone Essar
distributed bundled handsets through its existing 400,000 distribution outlets. By
flooding the market with its low-cost handsets, Vodafone also became a mass mobile
phone brand like Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson in addition to
continuing as telecom services provider.
Previously, similar handset-driven expansion strategies to grow subscriber bases were
adopted by CDMA players, like RCOM and Tata Teleservices. Vodafone is the first
GSM operator to follow suit.
The Vodafone mission is to be the communications leader in an increasingly
connected world – enriching customers’ lives, helping individuals, businesses and
communities be more connected by delivering their total communication needs.
Vodafone’s logo is a representation of that belief – The start of a new conversation, a
trigger, a catalyst, a mark of true pioneering.
Vodafone’s Advertising Strategies: Hutch to Vodafone
Advertising is probably one of the most frequently used vehicles for Rebranding, as it
is fairly easy, flexible and quick to change. It is a powerful way of reaching a broad or
targeted audience quickly and is effective at signaling a change in positioning,
however real or broad that may be. There are many examples of where advertising has
either repositioned or strengthened brands, other good examples of where advertising
has built a new position for a brand or built a strong emotional link with the public are
where companies have created a sort of soap opera out of their advertising.
The Advertising agency of Hutch and now Vodafone, Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), had
a two-fold task to achieve: announce the entry of Vodafone into India and highlight
the metamorphosis of Hutch into Vodafone. O&M realized that they had a fantastic
property in the Hutch pug, which they had been using for about five years. Therefore,
to show the transition from Hutch to Vodafone, O&M launched a rather direct,
thematic ad showing the trademark pug in a garden, moving out of a pink colored
kennel which symbolized Hutch making his way into a red one that is the Vodafone
color. A more energetic, chirpier version of the ‘You and I’ tune associated with
Hutch was played towards the end, and it concludes with ‘Change is good. Hutch is
now Vodafone’.
O&M has also rolled out four Commercials featuring Hutch’s animated boy and girl,
‘introducing’ the new brand’s logo to consumers. The four creative’s which were of
five seconds each included the duo peeping over a wall to see the logo; parasailing
with the logo flying high behind them; releasing a rocket bomb wherein the explosion
reveals the logo; and lastly, drawing curtains aside to show the logo.
Four other ads with the pug did the rounds of telly screens. These five and 10 second
spots cast the dog in situations where he, literally, saw red, using the color as a visual
mnemonic to remember the brand by. The pug was shown in a red basket, popping up
from a red cart, drying himself on a red mat, and hiding in a red blanket. Each of these
made use of the ‘Hutch is now Vodafone’ tagline.
The print ads, in all major languages in several leading dailies, were kept
unbelievably simple: a still shot of the pug inside a red kennel. The same creative was
used in outdoor hoardings as well, in all the 16 circles in which Vodafone now
operates.
It wasn’t easy integrating Vodafone with Hutch; the latter, as is known, is a subtle,
understated brand, while globally, Vodafone represents high energy, dynamism and
young vitality – all represented by its bright red speech mark logo. And so they put in
elements such as a more energetic tune and feel to the ads.
A few advertisements include:
Hutch is now Vodafone: If you watch any of the star channels or tuned into 20-20
world cup, you would have seen this ad On 11 February 2007, Vodafone agreed to
acquire the controlling interest of 67% held by Cheung Kong Holdings in Hutch-Essar
for US$11.1 billion and now had to rebrand itself so it has decided to run a new ad
series which piggy banked on Hutch’s dog mascot and the theme “Change is Good”.
This required nearly 250 crores of spending by Vodafone but they have successfully
painted the town red. An interesting part of this campaign was on the opening day
roadblock where they made a deal with Star India so that besides them no other
commercials were aired (apart from in-channel promos) on the Star India’s channels
for 24 hours.
Vodafone Valentine Day Special Ads: Vodafone had released a simple and sweet ad
for musical greetings targeted at couples during the valentine week the feature of this
campaign is its simplicity and believability and is quite well received. It uses the
positioning “Make the most of now” enjoy the video
Vodafone Chota Credit Ink Ad: This new ad had come as refreshing change and more
so that this ad takes a very refreshing look at school and at fountain pens. This ad
creates a wonderfully subtle message which really puts the point of chota (small)
credit across.