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Now, The Brand Game

Now that the technology battlelines are clear, here’s a look at the brand game in the Indian market for mobile phone services.

By Vandana Gombar

Telecom: Brand war begin

If there's an 'aur ek kahani' (one more story) that Reliance Infocomm's entry to the Indian mobile services market has conjured, it's got to be this: the brand game has begun in earnest.

Brand game? Yes. All this while, it was technology versus technology, WiLL versus GSM, the great fight for the standard. This, of course, is nowhere close to conclusion yet. Still, now that some degree of parity (in actual service delivery) has been attained by almost all players, it's time for the brand battle... the fight to secure consumer mindspace with one's brand - as a snappy easy-to-recall representative of a 'set of values'. Notice how aggressively Reliance IndiaMobile pitched its brand at the World Cup audience? And if you saw Sehwag's mother as the holder of India's fate on Sunday, you know who's responsible.

No one is suggesting that advertising can grant Reliance its dream of a lion's share of the market. How much trust the brand eventually commands could depend on several other factors that contribute to the placing of a brand in the cosier corners of the consumer's mind (and heart). Anyhow, the other mega-operator, other than Reliance, that also wants to do a Nirma on mobility, is the state-run BSNL, with its flagship brand CellOne. Given the price tacks that both players have adopted, it would seem that the market is highly commoditized, with pricing completely outweighing brand preference in the typical purchase decision. Indeed, pricing is the market driver - all the more so because the big subscription grab is for first-timers for whom affordability is everything. Within five months of launch, price player BSNL has 1.5 million subscribers, which is 13 per cent of the overall Indian market (11.8 million, as on February-end). This, despite the popular disgruntlement with BSNL-run landline services in the country.

Now, that's rapid progress. But the market leader remains Bharti's Airtel, with a quarter of the market. Smart ahead-of-the-curve brand moves (and spin-offs) are still working the magic for it, to an extent, though it has changed the Airtel logo to something a lot less stark. Hutch, the 'Hi' guy, is on second spot with 18 per cent with its distinctly yuppie flavour.

Brands be damned, did you say?

Well, even BSNL's CellOne is a brand, a no-frills one -- with few value-added services like always-on Internet (through GPRS) or multimedia messaging service (MMS). But as the name CellOne suggests, its ambition is plainly to become the No 1 in India. And it will have to work on the brand, especially if it is to overcome the upmarket perception of it being too infradig to be caught using.

"In a commoditized market, which telecom is today, the differentiator has to be the brand," says Rajan Swaroop, CEO, Escotel, a brand that has built a loyal following in several parts of the country. Even a recent McKinsey report on the Indian telecom sector spies the beginnings of a brand shift, as the market gets part its first phase of evolution. Around 20-28 per cent of the market, says the report, will soon make brand choices.

Agrees Jagdeep Kapoor, managing director of the Mumbai-based Samsika Marketing Consultants, "Now is the time when real branding will take place in telecom services, because now is the real challenge of competition." Other than the actual come-try-this appeal, brand experience and perceived value, as always, will be the shapers of brand strength. As the market matures, footprint coverage issues stabilize and services achieve technical excellence, the brand battle will get keener. The investment break-up, then, could shift solidly in favour of customer engagement.

Expect a phase of brand consolidation as well. "There are too many players and too many brands...concretization of positions will take place after another round of consolidation, which could happen in the next 12-24 months," says Abraham Karimpanal, Assistant general manager at market research group NFO MBL India.

Clutter-smashing will remain critical, a lesson taken seriously by the Tata-Birla-AT&T venture that many had written off. With the launch of Idea, with its exclamatory logo and all-sky atmospheric theme, this high-profile combine gave the brand-savvy upper-end of the market a refreshing new stimulant. It stole 'free' (the world's most potent four-letter ad word) from right under the WiLL players' noses, for example, and used it in a no-congestion ad that says 'All Lines In This Route Are Free'.

Simple disintermediation, in adspeak. Direct. No further clarification required. That's the way the other brands might have to think, soon, as well. As Charles Jenarius, senior Vice President, Rediffusion DY&R, sums up, "Companies have to fight a two-pronged battle. A price war on the ground, and a brand battle at the other end. A long-term player cannot afford to stumble at either end."

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