Last week Ola Cabs roped in India's Formula 1 driver Narain Karthikeyan for
ferrying customers from one location to another. Customers were more
than elated to find Karthikeyan as their cab driver and clicked selfies
with him.
The brand created a video of consumer experiences and shared it online. It went viral fetching millions of eyeballs. The idea behind this initiative was simple: to announce the revamp of its business class offering Ola Prime. And for this, Ola Cabs roped in several other celebrities too who will ride select customers.
It is not the first time when an app-based cab hailing service has resorted to experiential marketing. Earlier this year, Uber, another player in the category, sent pets and ice-creams to consumers' on-demand. In the last 12 months, they have done several experiential activities and collaborated with many brands such as Airtel, One Plus, Myntra, Comicon, London Dairy, Manyavar and dogspot.in.
Speaking on how these activities are offering a differentiated experience to consumers, Sudarshan Gangrade, Vice President, Marketing, Ola Cabs, said, "It is all about providing a unique experience to consumer. With the Narayan Karthikeyan activity, we wanted to become the talking point that such a cool thing has happened with people while they used Ola Cabs."
Modus Operandi
Both Ola Cabs and Uber have taken to experiential marketing in a big way to break the clutter.
Above: Ola Cabs Onground activities
Other such activities from Ola included giving away Indian Premier League Tickets, One Plus Two invites, makeovers from Myntra and luxury rides in luxury cars. Some of the Uber activities included free consultation to consumers at Maxcure Hospital, makeover at Manyavar, free drinks at pubs and bars, free Wi-Fi with Airtel and discounts at restaurants. In one such activity, people could actually request for a dholwala for their parties. People in large numbers requested for it and danced to his tunes.
During such activities, consumers who engage with the brand share their experience online. The brand then creates the content using these experiences and amplifies it to a larger audience via social media.
As a matter of fact, the brand may have just connected with only 200 people onground, but after social media amplification, it reaches to millions. Such activities generate trust, loyalty, and create a contemporary imagery for these brands.
Above: Uber Onground associations and activations
Gangrade further mentioned that Ola cabs opts for newer ideas, which appeal to customers. "It helps us increase brand engagement with the existing customers and generates enough recall to let new customers sample our services," he says.
Why Experiential Marketing?
Both Ola and Uber have a similar product - cab and their prices are also quite close. These activities help these brands differentiate from each other. "The primary objective of these brands is to get on the users smartphone and then be used again and again. They want to create more word of mouth for themselves," says Atul S Nath, MD, Candid Marketing.
It is also important to note that experiential marketing costs less when compared to a 5 week television campaign, though the ROI's on both are completely different. "We do television as well as experiential campaigns. TV gives us a high reach and the ROI is measured on reach and impact while the on-ground helps us provide experience and create a two way communication. The ROI for experiential marketing is calculated mostly on the buzz it created," Gangrade further explains.
Siddhartha Ghosh, Vice President, psLIVE shares that both television and experiential complement each other. "Television helps create imagery for the brand but the experiential helps in actually converting that imagery into loyalty by giving consumers a real time sampling of it. With experiential brands can even calculate that how much they gained and lost during such an activity based on the number of registers, new downloads, and reach," shares Ghosh.
When a consumer is in a cab, a brand has his full attention. It is that time of his day, when he is receptive to messages. So, if a product is pitched to him during this time, consumers are most likely to listen. "It is also a win-win situation for the brand that partner with these cab brands. And, if the medium is used wisely, it has the ability to change consumer habits," shares Ghosh.
Adding to this, Ankur Kalra CEO, Vibgyor Brand Services, opines, "I may know about an ice-cream, but if I get to eat it during my travel, I will have a completely different experience and opinion. When a consumer undergoes such an experience he remembers it for a long time."
Ghosh shares that these cab brands are not competing with the traditional cabs. "It is the early stage of innovation, but in times to come, they will have to innovate more to ensure recall and differentiation." He also cautioned that at this point all these cab brands should go for partnerships.
The Right Way?
Ola Cabs agrees that the Karthikeyan activity was done at small scale and the generated content was amplified on social media. Stating his argument, Gangrade points out that they plan different scale for different activities. "We distributed IPL tickets on a large scale in past," shares Gangrade.
So, when only a few people could experience the concept, is experiential marketing the right road for the brands to connect with people?
Nath is not sure about it. "It is difficult to calculate ROI here because if one considers experience, then the number of people is really less. But, if the brand calculates it on the buzz created, then the question arises that does that buzz really matter as the number of people sampling it were less," shares Nath.
Read our entire coverage on Ola
Though it sounds like a correct argument, Ghosh argues that Today a BTL activity cannot be standalone. It needs to be amplified. "A parallel format of digital or social media is needed to ensure that the brand's communication reaches to a large number of people. The experiential activity can begin from digital and end in a BTL or vice-versa," points out Ghosh. Adding to this Kalra of Vibgyor Brand Services mentions that amplification is needed when reach has to be built.
Spends
Gangrade points that Ola Cabs spends less than 10% of its marketing budget towards experiential marketing. However, industry stakeholders point out that the role of experiential is growing in every category be it the traditional or the new age brands. Industry estimates points that brands earmark between 15% and 30% of their annual marketing spends towards experiential.
Ghosh also shares that while a brand is launched the experiential budget is raised to nearly 30% of the total marketing spend to drive engagement.
It is still early days for Ola Cabs and Uber in India as they are attempting to change the behavior of how people ride from one point to another. While they continue with such innovative experiential marketing, they will have to come up with more path breaking ideas to connect with people.
Source: http://www.adageindia.in/marketing/cmo-strategy/heres-why-taxi-haling-apps-are-riding-high-on-experiential-marketing/articleshow/49038098.cms
The brand created a video of consumer experiences and shared it online. It went viral fetching millions of eyeballs. The idea behind this initiative was simple: to announce the revamp of its business class offering Ola Prime. And for this, Ola Cabs roped in several other celebrities too who will ride select customers.
It is not the first time when an app-based cab hailing service has resorted to experiential marketing. Earlier this year, Uber, another player in the category, sent pets and ice-creams to consumers' on-demand. In the last 12 months, they have done several experiential activities and collaborated with many brands such as Airtel, One Plus, Myntra, Comicon, London Dairy, Manyavar and dogspot.in.
Speaking on how these activities are offering a differentiated experience to consumers, Sudarshan Gangrade, Vice President, Marketing, Ola Cabs, said, "It is all about providing a unique experience to consumer. With the Narayan Karthikeyan activity, we wanted to become the talking point that such a cool thing has happened with people while they used Ola Cabs."
Modus Operandi
Both Ola Cabs and Uber have taken to experiential marketing in a big way to break the clutter.
Above: Ola Cabs Onground activities
Other such activities from Ola included giving away Indian Premier League Tickets, One Plus Two invites, makeovers from Myntra and luxury rides in luxury cars. Some of the Uber activities included free consultation to consumers at Maxcure Hospital, makeover at Manyavar, free drinks at pubs and bars, free Wi-Fi with Airtel and discounts at restaurants. In one such activity, people could actually request for a dholwala for their parties. People in large numbers requested for it and danced to his tunes.
During such activities, consumers who engage with the brand share their experience online. The brand then creates the content using these experiences and amplifies it to a larger audience via social media.
As a matter of fact, the brand may have just connected with only 200 people onground, but after social media amplification, it reaches to millions. Such activities generate trust, loyalty, and create a contemporary imagery for these brands.
Above: Uber Onground associations and activations
Gangrade further mentioned that Ola cabs opts for newer ideas, which appeal to customers. "It helps us increase brand engagement with the existing customers and generates enough recall to let new customers sample our services," he says.
Why Experiential Marketing?
Both Ola and Uber have a similar product - cab and their prices are also quite close. These activities help these brands differentiate from each other. "The primary objective of these brands is to get on the users smartphone and then be used again and again. They want to create more word of mouth for themselves," says Atul S Nath, MD, Candid Marketing.
It is also important to note that experiential marketing costs less when compared to a 5 week television campaign, though the ROI's on both are completely different. "We do television as well as experiential campaigns. TV gives us a high reach and the ROI is measured on reach and impact while the on-ground helps us provide experience and create a two way communication. The ROI for experiential marketing is calculated mostly on the buzz it created," Gangrade further explains.
Siddhartha Ghosh, Vice President, psLIVE shares that both television and experiential complement each other. "Television helps create imagery for the brand but the experiential helps in actually converting that imagery into loyalty by giving consumers a real time sampling of it. With experiential brands can even calculate that how much they gained and lost during such an activity based on the number of registers, new downloads, and reach," shares Ghosh.
When a consumer is in a cab, a brand has his full attention. It is that time of his day, when he is receptive to messages. So, if a product is pitched to him during this time, consumers are most likely to listen. "It is also a win-win situation for the brand that partner with these cab brands. And, if the medium is used wisely, it has the ability to change consumer habits," shares Ghosh.
Adding to this, Ankur Kalra CEO, Vibgyor Brand Services, opines, "I may know about an ice-cream, but if I get to eat it during my travel, I will have a completely different experience and opinion. When a consumer undergoes such an experience he remembers it for a long time."
Ghosh shares that these cab brands are not competing with the traditional cabs. "It is the early stage of innovation, but in times to come, they will have to innovate more to ensure recall and differentiation." He also cautioned that at this point all these cab brands should go for partnerships.
The Right Way?
Ola Cabs agrees that the Karthikeyan activity was done at small scale and the generated content was amplified on social media. Stating his argument, Gangrade points out that they plan different scale for different activities. "We distributed IPL tickets on a large scale in past," shares Gangrade.
So, when only a few people could experience the concept, is experiential marketing the right road for the brands to connect with people?
Nath is not sure about it. "It is difficult to calculate ROI here because if one considers experience, then the number of people is really less. But, if the brand calculates it on the buzz created, then the question arises that does that buzz really matter as the number of people sampling it were less," shares Nath.
Read our entire coverage on Ola
Though it sounds like a correct argument, Ghosh argues that Today a BTL activity cannot be standalone. It needs to be amplified. "A parallel format of digital or social media is needed to ensure that the brand's communication reaches to a large number of people. The experiential activity can begin from digital and end in a BTL or vice-versa," points out Ghosh. Adding to this Kalra of Vibgyor Brand Services mentions that amplification is needed when reach has to be built.
Spends
Gangrade points that Ola Cabs spends less than 10% of its marketing budget towards experiential marketing. However, industry stakeholders point out that the role of experiential is growing in every category be it the traditional or the new age brands. Industry estimates points that brands earmark between 15% and 30% of their annual marketing spends towards experiential.
Ghosh also shares that while a brand is launched the experiential budget is raised to nearly 30% of the total marketing spend to drive engagement.
It is still early days for Ola Cabs and Uber in India as they are attempting to change the behavior of how people ride from one point to another. While they continue with such innovative experiential marketing, they will have to come up with more path breaking ideas to connect with people.
Source: http://www.adageindia.in/marketing/cmo-strategy/heres-why-taxi-haling-apps-are-riding-high-on-experiential-marketing/articleshow/49038098.cms
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