Sunil Sood, MD & CEO, Vodafone India talks about its new brand positioning. Sandeep Bhushan, Director, Facebook India and South Asia talks about ‘Discover Growth’, an event that discussed key strategies focused on growth marketing
VODAFONE AIMS TO HANDHOLD CUSTOMERS THROUGH THE EXCITING JOURNEY OF TECH ADVANCES: SUNIL SOOD
To position itself as a brand that is ready for the advances in technology in the near future, Vodafone has revamped its brand positioning with the tagline ‘The Future is Exciting. Ready?’ as well as a new logo. Sunil Sood, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Vodafone India and creative partner Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman and Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather, India and South Asia tell us more.
Sunil Sood: We are entering a new era of disruption and collaboration, driven by cutting-edge technology like IoT, Cloud, Augmented Reality, bots and robots, among other things, an era when experiences make or break businesses. Everything we know is changing for the better. The critical connectivity layer that telecoms provide is what powers these changes. We want customers to embrace the future and take a step forward to be in tune with the times. We want to position ourselves as modern and contemporary and a brand that has a progressive view of the world. Our communication will position us as partners with our customers. We aim to handhold customers and navigate them through this new, exciting journey.
Piyush Pandey: We have lived with ‘Power to You’ as Vodafone’s positioning where we tried to humanize the tagline to the best of our ability. Our current positioning, more than just being a change of positioning, is an evolution of the philosophy from ‘Power to You’ to ‘Inspire You’. ‘Power to You’ was about the known, but ‘Inspiring You’ is more about trying and finding out new things. The more you try and discover, the more you’ll find that we can make it happen. Internationally, the brand’s focus is on showing the cutting edge technology, to surprise people. It retains the soul of Vodafone.
The marketing industry is currently facing a complex environment where the increase in time being spent on mobile is leading to increasing consumer choices and fragmenting media environment. In an attempt to support businesses to drive growth in this mobile-first era, Facebook held a day-long event in Mumbai, ‘Discover Growth’. The event brought together industry stake-holders to discuss key strategies focused on growth marketing and how Facebook solutions can help businesses drive growth.
Along with Sandeep Bhushan, Director, Facebook India and South Asia, Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO, South Asia Dentsu Aegis Network, Alok Agarwal, General Manager, Marketing Excellence, GSK Consumer Healthcare and Ambuj Chandna, Head-Retail Liabilities, Investments & Payment Products, Kotak Mahindra Bank were part of a panel discussion on challenges in business and how Facebook is helping tackle them.
On Facebook’s active role in helping brands walk through the complex business environment, Sandeep Bhushan said, “With over 217 million monthly active users in India - most of whom are active on mobile - Facebook is at the heart of a mobile-first shopping journey. We want to help all marketers and businesses drive revenue growth by tapping into the shift in consumer behaviour towards mobile, and help them adopt practices to drive both penetration and loyalty.”
The discussions were aimed at helping people gain in-depth insights into Facebook’s mobile solutions that can help marketers grow and engage consumers at every step of the purchase journey. Some of the top strategies included acquiring customers early in the purchase journey and generating intent, the importance of short, compelling creatives and Facebook’s short form creative ad formats that are built to deliver better experiences on mobile, in addition to measuring the things that matter to help advertises refine their marketing spends.
