Vodafone Essar : Marketing Analysis

Vodafone Essar : Marketing Analysis -

Establishment

The company was founded in 1982 as a joint venture .the name was derived from the newly-found company's goal of establishing both voice (VO) and data (DA) services over a mobile telephone network.

Hutchison Essar Established - 1994 an Essar group and Hutchison Whampoa undertaking,

acquiring the cellular mobile licence for Mumbai has a nationwide market share of 16.4pc

the fourth-largest Indian operator. &;Most Respected Telecom Company‘ & apos;Best Mobile Service in the country& Most Creative and Most Effective Advertiser of the Yea.

Vodafone Essar

Vodafone Essar, previously Hutchison Essar is a cellular operator in India that covers 23 telecom circles in India.

Despite the official name being Vodafone Essar, its products are simply branded Vodafone. It offers both prepaid and postpaid GSMcellular phone coverage throughout India with good presence in the metros.

Vodaphone's current positioning in India has evolved over the years and has not been immediately or directly influenced by its parent company's global brand strategy.

Firstly, before it was taken over, Vodaphone in India was called Hutch and even before that as Orange (Way back in the early part of this decade).

From the time of its conception, this company has always positioned itself as a hip, premium (not necessarily in cost) and innovative company.

In spite of undergoing two makeovers (From Orange (brand color orange) to Hutch (color pink) to Vodaphone (color Red)), the image of the company has remained the same.

From the ads of the current Zoo-Zoo's to the one with the adorable dog, Vodaphone's ads have always been innovative and sought to strike a note of being different from the rest of the operators.

Even the value add services they offer are targeted at the pre-dominantly urban and premium customer. Services like Phone Contact List Back-up, freedom to record/choose busy tune etc are not normally used by the typical rural/ semi-urban user.

Moreover, the very fact that they have chosen not to completely follow the across-the-board price cuts which were adopted by other operators only reinforces this premium image

Finally, Vodaphone (its previous avtaars) was among the three operators to have been given a huge chunk (10 Mhz) of the spectrum in major circles (Mumbai, Delhi etc) in the first round of mobile license auctions. This gave them a good platform to launch their percieved premium services

Customer who wish to be associated with a percieved premium operator and avail themselves of the excellent and innovative services and value add services are willing to pay that little bit extra for the same. This is called as niche marketing. You make 10 cents each by serving 10 customers and make your dollar OR you make 50 cents each by serving two customers. The difference between Vodafone and Air Tel or for that matter any other service provider is similar to the difference between HSBC and ICICI. These players are not here to cater masses but specific class of customers. Their motto is to concentrate on excellence and thereby customer satisfaction and customer retention. They provide excellent service and cater to limited number of customers. Compare to their counterparts, they are likely to spend little time and money on handling issues related to customer grievances and retention.

as abhinav has said you need to pay for quality. besides the customer care of vodafone is far superior. this is something you really don't experience unless you face a problem. only then will you realise that the extra payment is well worth it.

Targeting

Vodafone is adopting multi-segment approach .they are offering a series of differentiated products to their respective markets. Home calling cards for the families of those professional who use to work abroad. Rs. 10 recharge for small user.

Cheap SMS facility for youth Facilities for circle users.

Positioning :

"where you go the network follows you "

Hutch , as a brand, always tried to connect with consumers in simple, honest and real manner, while vodafone is more young and fun brand. So consumer will see a shift reflecting