Business Today: Editorial

CU 2Nite@McLuhan's...

The decision by Delhi's largest cellular services company to launch a youth club-for its subscribers of a certain age profile-shouldn't, in normal course of events, be fodder enough for even a passing mention in a space traditionally reserved for rarefied pontification. If it does, it is because there is more to the happening: it is probably the first attempt by an Indian cellular service provider (or tech company) in lifestyle marketing. Abstruse as it may sound (and inadvertent as the initiative may be), that is the truth.

A cellular service, like most other technology-linked services, is at the end of the day, a commodity offering. There is only so much a service provider can differentiate itself on the basis of price, value-added offerings, service quality, or technology. To get subscribers to continue to pay the premium they do for the service-and it is, despite falling tariffs, still a premium-companies have to adopt a lifestyle platform. And that is exactly what the company in question seems to have done.

Are Indian cellular users ready for such a shift? Purely going by their itchy-fingers when it comes to SMS, one would think so. The numbers may be insignificant in comparison, but the SMS revolution in India is no less a watershed than comparable events in Finland (where cellular phone penetration is the highest, in excess of 80 per cent, and where teenagers in the streets were playing a SMS-based cops and robbers game three, may be four years ago), and Japan.

The benefits of moving to a lifestyle platform can be enumerated in agonising theoretical fashion, but the case is probably easier to present through the experiences of the world's three strongest technology lifestyle brands. The first is Apple, and from the first Macintosh, to the iMac, to the Cube (which didn't do well), to the iBook, to the iPod, the company that resides at 1, Infinity Loop, Cupertino, has set itself apart as the world's premier technology lifestyle brand. It may no longer be possible to get all the software you want for a Mac, and the company may have, courtesy some early erroneous decisions, been relegated to the status of niche player, but as a brand, Apple still retains its lustre. There are enough Mac-fanatics in India to bear this out.

The second is the only company that is today in a position to challenge Apple (purely for the label of tech-lifestyle numero uno), Finn cell-phone maker Nokia. When you are selling as commoditised a product as a cellular phone, technology (no matter what you call it) or features don't matter. Which is why Nokia has steadfastly refused to label itself a technology company. Its CEO Jorma Olilla has always maintained that Nokia is a consumer products company. You can't get any more lifestyle-oriented than that. Philips presents an ideal contrast. The company has tried to leverage its undisputed technology leadership status into a great consumer brand and not enjoyed as much success as it could have. Ever heard of someone wanting to own a Philips mobile?

And the third is Japan's docomo, a movement more than a brand which has managed to create a community of a couple of tens of millions, merely by putting some dumb devices in the hands of people, tying in some nifty utilities, and then nurturing a community.

To take a little detour, creating a lifestyle-platform was what community sites tried to do, in India, and elsewhere in the world. And their failure, at least in India, can be attributed to the fact that there wasn't a critical mass of users to create a community. With mobile phones there is. The service provider that has launched the youth club boasts just over a million subscribers across the country.

Talk of technical specifications and service quality may appeal to informed end-users, like purchase managers of companies. Retail consumers can't be bothered much about it-whether it be computers, or cellular phones, or a cellular service. A computer is a computer is a computer, except when it is Apple. A mobile phone is a mobile phone is a mobile phone, unless it is a Nokia.

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