The symbolism of turning the green Android bot into blue enhances the smartphone experience for consumers as Reliance Communications ties up with Google for exclusive Android mobile devices. Shivani Suri Dhanda, Deputy GM, Brand and Marketing of Reliance Communications, says the blue bot will also help garner high brand recognition
Q] What are the insights behind your recent campaign of turning the green Android bot into blue? What were the trends that you had considered while developing this campaign?
When we entered into collaboration with Google to promote the usage of Android devices in India, we were looking for a very simple yet effective way to depict the coming together of the two brands. We also wanted to indicate longevity, given our partnership, which is for a minimum period of two years currently. Our creative agency Grey Worldwide came up with this ingenious idea of taking the green Android bot, and turning it into blue, metaphorically infusing it with the power of Reliance. If you look at our advertising, you will find that symbolisms play a very vital role, be it in the form of colours or icons or mascots. They tend to garner high recognition for the brand as brand identifiers. So this concept not only gives the end-user a strong symbol in the form of a blue bot, that catapults a superlative smartphone experience enabled by Android on Reliance 3G, but it also helps us to have a strong identification in the mind of the consumer with respect to the colour blue. So there is some form of ownership that comes in.
We also keenly looked at consumer trends within India and emerging trends worldwide with respect to smartphone and mobile Internet usage to basically hone down on the key services, applications on the Internet and on smartphones so that we could bring them forth in our ads.
Q] When you had the concept in place, how did you approach the execution strategy differently so as to break clutter in the category?
The communication idea itself is very powerful. If you look at the Indian scenario, there is a lot of live action communication but very limited animation-led advertising on the screen. So the format of 3D animation in itself becomes clutter-breaking and tends to have higher recall. That is the first aspect which has helped us grab the consumer’s attention. Further, every medium that we have gone into, our approach has been of integration with the content and innovation. So while we are present on over 60 television channels with our advertising, we’ve gone a step further and created a lot of innovative communication formats on key genres and channels which includes programme integrations that go beyond the 30-second spot.
We also have a very robust Digital plan. Simple banners have been made very interactive with the idea of turning the green bot blue. We’ve created an app for Facebook users where you have to turn the green bot into blue by using your social skills. Around 10% of our budget has been allocated to Digital. We will soon launch an augmented reality game where the blue bot actually comes alive in front of your laptop or desktop screen and by pressing some keys on your keyboard, you can make it dance to your tune, in different dance movements, and even dance along. We’ve also done activations and special installations on-ground.
Q] Android has been in the market for some time now and people are well aware of the operating system. Isn’t it a little too late for Reliance to bring out exclusive Android devices in India?
The smartphone market is yet to explode in India. We are at the cusp of an exponential growth. If today a feature phone is for the masses, smartphones are soon going to become the feature phones for India, and they will become a part of our everyday life across segments and geographies. At Reliance, we envision to play a pivotal role in accelerating this growth momentum. And this collaboration with Google is one of the many steps towards this.
Q] Although Reliance is ahead of other players in terms of subscriber count, it lags behind in terms of revenues per subscriber. How does the company plan to address this and what role does marketing play in this regard?
In terms of marketing, we are pushing new technologies into the market. We launched 3G a year-and-a-half back. We are trying to create awareness for the technology to lead to higher adoption rates and eventually higher usage. That is the key role marketing will play - in recruiting consumers and getting them to adopt new services.
Q] So, eventually increasing data driven revenues...
Absolutely. Because that will become a large pie and a large quantity of our overall revenue. That is the future of how companies are going to increase their revenues beyond voice.
Q] What is the percentage share of your total revenue that comes from Internet usage and mobile phones?
As a company policy, we do not release those break-ups. But at an industry level, it is anything between 10-15%. But for most mature markets, it ranges upwards of 30%. So you can see the gap that is in the Indian market today. In fact, in other economies like Japan, it is upwards of 50%.
Q] What are your communication and business objectives with this campaign?
The key objective of this campaign is to establish that the best smartphone experience will have to be part of Reliance and Reliance 3G and the Android world. Our business goal is to garner a disproportionate share for Reliance amongst smartphone users by promoting usage of Android devices in the country and creating a superlative experience for customers adopting the Reliance 3G network. We are already witnessing a certain quantum of daily activations of Android devices by users post the launch of our campaign. The subscriber base on Reliance 3G network has already grown multi-fold.
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