At present there are over 160 million smartphone users in the country,
and this number is expected to grow at 25%+ CAGR. Seeing this as an
interesting opportunity, all handset manufacturers are doing all that
they can to grab a bigger market share in India.
And one among them is Micromax. The home-grown mobile maker is nowadays busy promoting its Bolt range smartphones that are priced between Rs 2,000 and Rs 6,000. For this, it has launched a 360-degree campaign, and roped in Kapil Sharma and Rana Daggubati as brand endorser.
And one among them is Micromax. The home-grown mobile maker is nowadays busy promoting its Bolt range smartphones that are priced between Rs 2,000 and Rs 6,000. For this, it has launched a 360-degree campaign, and roped in Kapil Sharma and Rana Daggubati as brand endorser.
As part of this campaign, Micromax has launched six TVCs; three each for North India and South India markets. Designed and conceptualized by Lowe Lintas, these commercials will be shown on national and regional channels including news, entertainment, movies and others.
With this campaign, the brand aims to speak to those people who aspire
to make a shift to their first smartphone and has limited money to
invest in. The buyer could be anyone—a rickshaw driver, peon, migrant
laborer, son/daughter from a lower income group family who cannot spare
money for expensive mobile phones. These people are not just present in
the metro cities, but across the country in Tier II and III cities.
Bolt-ed?
Micromax's strong focus on marketing has mainly been centered upon their smartphone brand Canvas. The brand even went to the extent of making Hugh Jackman the face of the Canvas Range. And Canvas has been a successful brand for the company. However, with this campaign, is Micromax now focusing strongly on growing the Bolt range?
We asked Shubhajit Sen, Chief Marketing Officer, Micromax the same question and he explained how he intends to remove all the barriers that stop Indians from shifting to a smartphone.
He says, "The key barrier include increase in the monthly bills due to data plans, hesitation to adapt the touch technology and English language as the key interaction language in the phone. However, the triggers that push people for the transition include seamless connectivity with family and friends via apps and accessibility to good content. To solve these concerns, we refreshed our product lineup and introduced the Bolt range, which has phones with local language support, free data plan for Whatsapp for the first five months, local language support and helpline and others. We have made our product compatible to people's needs. It is compatible in 10 different languages. The idea was to get our product portfolio right for our consumers and then step up the marketing."
In the past Micromax had advertised for its Bolt Range with Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar. Currently, Micromax claims to hold 17% of the smartphone market and 25% - 30% of the mass phone market (between the range of Rs 3,000 and Rs 10,000). The brand is now looking to boost its overall market share by betting high on Bolt Range.
"In the recent times, Bolt was being promoted at the trade level. Several activations were done within the store. Our focus was more on supporting the distribution and this was paying us good results. Now, we find that Bolt Range can provide Micromax an incremental growth in its overall sales. Hence we decided to promote it," shares Sen.
Micormax has roped in Sharma and Daggubati for a period of one year and have big plans for its Bolt Range. They have kept it as their flagship product and has diverted 60-70% of their marketing budgets towards it. However, the rest of the marketing spends will be for the Canvas Range, which is already paying good dividends to the brand.
The brand has kept humor at the centre of the campaign as it cuts across the different age group and socio-economic profiles. Speaking on appointing Sharma and Daggubati as the endorser, Sen informs that the audience for the Bolt range connects very well to these stars.
"Interestingly during our research we found that people in the hinterland, who we are targeting for the Bolt Range, consider Sharma as one of their own. They relate to his hardwork and struggle, and appreciate him for that. However, Daggubati is hugely popular, and has a great brand recall. In this campaign, people will see him in a different zone and it will be a disruptive one for the markets," opines Sen.
It will be interesting to see Micromax returning to humorous theme. Sen believes that comedy can be a great platform for the brand to connect with its people. "In the past, we have done some quirky campaigns for the Bolt Range. But we have again decided to go for humor as humor is the second thing after cricket that binds India together. It is the youth sub-culture and is part of the people's lingo," shares Sen.
Further, in order to make a lasting impression on the audiences, the brand is also launching videos to educate people on how to set up a Gmail account, download apps, make groups, invite people and other things.
Heading South
Micromax is very keen to explore South India markets now. Till date, the brand has kept most of its focus of North, West and East but not invested much in South. Is it is trying to make its presence felt in these markets by bringing Daggubati onboard.
"We have a relatively average market share as we did not much invest in this market. But, we have been talking about focusing on South and hence have taken a departure from our previous strategy and entered the South markets. We plan to invest extra to reach at par in the market," points out Sen.
Read our entire coverage on Micromax
Well, we certainly hope that Micromax will be able to make inroads into the Southern market. However, there is no doubt that the brand has grown really fast in a few years to be a major threat to its counterparts. Over the years, the brand has made transition from being just a mobile phone brand to a premium brand, and Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman has played a major role in it.
Bolt-ed?
Micromax's strong focus on marketing has mainly been centered upon their smartphone brand Canvas. The brand even went to the extent of making Hugh Jackman the face of the Canvas Range. And Canvas has been a successful brand for the company. However, with this campaign, is Micromax now focusing strongly on growing the Bolt range?
We asked Shubhajit Sen, Chief Marketing Officer, Micromax the same question and he explained how he intends to remove all the barriers that stop Indians from shifting to a smartphone.
He says, "The key barrier include increase in the monthly bills due to data plans, hesitation to adapt the touch technology and English language as the key interaction language in the phone. However, the triggers that push people for the transition include seamless connectivity with family and friends via apps and accessibility to good content. To solve these concerns, we refreshed our product lineup and introduced the Bolt range, which has phones with local language support, free data plan for Whatsapp for the first five months, local language support and helpline and others. We have made our product compatible to people's needs. It is compatible in 10 different languages. The idea was to get our product portfolio right for our consumers and then step up the marketing."
In the past Micromax had advertised for its Bolt Range with Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar. Currently, Micromax claims to hold 17% of the smartphone market and 25% - 30% of the mass phone market (between the range of Rs 3,000 and Rs 10,000). The brand is now looking to boost its overall market share by betting high on Bolt Range.
"In the recent times, Bolt was being promoted at the trade level. Several activations were done within the store. Our focus was more on supporting the distribution and this was paying us good results. Now, we find that Bolt Range can provide Micromax an incremental growth in its overall sales. Hence we decided to promote it," shares Sen.
Micormax has roped in Sharma and Daggubati for a period of one year and have big plans for its Bolt Range. They have kept it as their flagship product and has diverted 60-70% of their marketing budgets towards it. However, the rest of the marketing spends will be for the Canvas Range, which is already paying good dividends to the brand.
The brand has kept humor at the centre of the campaign as it cuts across the different age group and socio-economic profiles. Speaking on appointing Sharma and Daggubati as the endorser, Sen informs that the audience for the Bolt range connects very well to these stars.
"Interestingly during our research we found that people in the hinterland, who we are targeting for the Bolt Range, consider Sharma as one of their own. They relate to his hardwork and struggle, and appreciate him for that. However, Daggubati is hugely popular, and has a great brand recall. In this campaign, people will see him in a different zone and it will be a disruptive one for the markets," opines Sen.
It will be interesting to see Micromax returning to humorous theme. Sen believes that comedy can be a great platform for the brand to connect with its people. "In the past, we have done some quirky campaigns for the Bolt Range. But we have again decided to go for humor as humor is the second thing after cricket that binds India together. It is the youth sub-culture and is part of the people's lingo," shares Sen.
Further, in order to make a lasting impression on the audiences, the brand is also launching videos to educate people on how to set up a Gmail account, download apps, make groups, invite people and other things.
Heading South
Micromax is very keen to explore South India markets now. Till date, the brand has kept most of its focus of North, West and East but not invested much in South. Is it is trying to make its presence felt in these markets by bringing Daggubati onboard.
"We have a relatively average market share as we did not much invest in this market. But, we have been talking about focusing on South and hence have taken a departure from our previous strategy and entered the South markets. We plan to invest extra to reach at par in the market," points out Sen.
Read our entire coverage on Micromax
Well, we certainly hope that Micromax will be able to make inroads into the Southern market. However, there is no doubt that the brand has grown really fast in a few years to be a major threat to its counterparts. Over the years, the brand has made transition from being just a mobile phone brand to a premium brand, and Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman has played a major role in it.
Source: http://www.adageindia.in/marketing/cmo-strategy/heres-why-micromax-is-shifting-its-marketing-focus-to-bolt-smartphones/articleshow/49315584.cms
Comments
Post a Comment