Mobile players go guerilla for mindshare

Aman Verma, recently exhorting viewers to vote for their favourite female singer on the Indian Idol II show, whipped out a handset and quipped: "You can now SMS in Hindi as well from this Nokia phone."

In another serial, Arman had called Jassi from his prominently visible Nokia smartphone. A casual couch potato may not realise that these were part of a well-orchestrated market strategy by the handset giant. Nokia happens to be not just the market leader but one which chips out the biggest advertising share in mobile handsets.

While mobile phone advertisements appear to be on a roll, in-programme placement is certainly the latest mantra.

"The frequency of ad campaigns has gone up by 50 times which obviously hurts eyeballs. Combine this to the fact that the cost of buying media has gone up rapidly and it's only natural for companies to move into the programmes for advertising their products," points out TAM's Siddhartha Mukherjee.

The total number of brands advertised on television, he emphasises, has gone up from 4,000 in 1994 to 14,000 in 2004 and hence the impending need to break the clutter.

Nokia's multimedia director, Gautam Advani couldn't agree more. "This is yet another innovative way to present our products to the consumers," he explains.

A common phenomenon in the West, the Rs 450 crore in-programme placement in India is nevertheless only in a nascent stage. But the bug seems to have caught almost every handset manufacturer.

So while LG which has already begun experimenting for its consumer durables (as seen in Bunty aur Babli) claims to be currently charting out its strategy for its mobilephones as well, Samsung has gone ahead with using this strategic tool for in film placements. So check out the forthcoming flick Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna which will have major in-film placement of Samsung mobiles.

That probably explains the major boom in the advertising spends on mobile phones by each of the players. According to AdEx findings, the total advertisement spend in the current fiscal (Q1, Q2, Q3) already stand at Rs 127 crore. 

MOBILE AD SPENDS (Rs in crore)
Category	Media	2004	Q1' 05	Q2' 05	Q3' 05
Cellular Phones	TV	0.97	0.28	0.34	0.25
	Press	0.58	0.14	0.16	0.10
	Total	1.55	0.42	0.50	0.35
Source : TV AdEx Note : Spends are based on Industry Estimates

Handset manufacturers are churning out newer models by the day with snazzy features. Hence, there's a greater pressure on both marketers as well as creative agencies to catch the consumers' fancy.

So while Nokia advertisements claim to retain the Indianness of the brand, Samsung ads tend to represent the personality of the user.

"Our advertising represents a blend of style and functionality. Style is driven by the product design and the functionality is driven by the superior technology and features," claims Asim Warsi, marketing head for Samsung Mobiles, adding: "This year, most of the TVCs are not brand campaigns but linked to the products."

LG mobile phone advertisements, on the other hand, are focussed on building the brand first and then moving on to highlight the features.

"When it's a new model, pricing is not so important. While the creative aspect is important, advertisements will be incomplete without outlining the benefits for the consumers," says Girish Bapat, VP, marketing, LG Electronics.

The company admits to have focussed more on print in H1 of 2005 and gradually shifted to the electronic and internet media in H2.

"The customer today is very discerning and aware. It is the product-benefits rather than the price-benefits that appeal to him. Therefore, we see that advertisements are more focussed on features than pricing," maintains Bapat.

Meanwhile Nokia commercials try to connect with audiences in a typically Indian way. "Although Nokia also tries to address different segments as the company has a very wide target consumer base, there's a distinct commonality, a human charm in each of them," points out Rajeev Raja, creative director, Bates India, Nokia's creative agency.

So whether it's Har jeb mein rang, sirf baat mat karo or Jago India Jago, there's a distinct `Nokianness' connecting each of them, he adds.

Even as mobile players and their creative agencies try to outdo each other and break the mould in reaching out to the consumers, there's a palpable bonhomie.

For they realise that the Indian mobile market which has crossed the 60 million mark is huge and growing at a robust rate. The hope is that in India everyone will have a cellphone. What more could they ask for?