The New Tata Docomo Ad

The New Tata Docomo Ad

The latest series of Tata Docomo ads are refreshing.

The Indian telecom industry has always managed to come up with some of the best ad campaigns over the past decade(Airtel , Hutch  )and the trend seems to be continuing. With the focus within the industry being on increasing data usage (remember the "No Ullu Banaoing" series from Idea?) the youth - not necessarily Tier 1 urban youth - are the focus of all these ads. 

The ads immediately connect to this target segment and I think that's because the people behind them were able to do the following effectively

1) Observe your target: 

Stake out your target. Get to know their lives, what they go through, what's going on in their minds, their outlooks - even though they might be completely contrary to your own personal beliefs. 

2) Observe patterns in behavior: 

Is there a quirk your target likes to do? In this case, young people are who have just got jobs or in college enjoy being up to date with their Facebook notifications, Whatsapp messages, twitter feeds.

3) Ask the "Why?": 

This is where most people falter and the reason we see so many forgettable ads. Looking at a person's behavior and telling them you can do this with my product/service is not enough. We have to make it ABOUT THEM and the way to do that is to find out WHY they do what they do. Here are the Whys behind the three ads:

POSER: People need validation and that is the reason our feeds are filled with photos of people's vacations and babies and marriage anniversaries. Social Media itself taps into the deepest narcissistic needs of humans. 

FAALOODA: People enjoy Whatsapping with their friends at work, because it gives them a vent, an out - a feeling that they can do what they want without having it monitored by their boss , while at the same time, taking too little time and effort out of their working day. 

PRESSURE COOKER (this ad seems to be about voice): Engineers get MBAs and are posted to far flung places working in factories that are a far cry from the protected environment they grew up in. They lose contact with friends.

4) Add some humor:

Now we put on our creative hats (or hire some creative people, if you're that way inclined) and make these concepts into workable, humourous communication ideas. There is humour in the visual, the audio background, the noir style of narrative, the narrative itself. Plus, it's not funny if YOU think it's funny, test it out on some people from your target segment.

5) Launch where your target will see it

The person in charge probably said: Make ad, out it up on the sports channels and reality TV shows, make a youtube video, share it on Facebook with a CPA, on Twitter, pre-roll it on youtube itself for a couple of weeks, target the people who watch Viral Fever, AIB, Pretentious Movie Reviews, get some bloggers to write on this and share it on their Facebook.  He/she backed it up with a cost estimate. You should do that.  

What's the point of it all?

But the question remains to be asked, what's the point of it all? A couple of days ago, Abhinav and I were talking about the reason companies are seeing growth in revenues from data is that people rarely switch Network Providers for better data packs, so providers are able to make good profits here. Why then would anyone spend so much on these advertisements for data knowing that no matter how good your ads are, no one is going to switch based on your data plan, and less so on the basis of your ad alone.

The key maybe in understanding that a lot of young people switch cities at that stage of their lives. And since roaming (voice) is not free in India, this usually entails a change of numbers. This means that the opportunity exists to get these young people, newly transplanted to other cities, interested in our brand as the one which connects with them. If this hypothesis is true, then if and when free voice roaming is implemented in India, the data market will also become a price war.

I think the current system of having free data roaming and no voice roaming ensures that there is healthy competition in providing telecom services to the country at large while still allowing firms to make revenues. There is also no incentive for the regulator to make voice roaming free within the country, especially given that this may chase away firms from the telecom market.

What could have been done better?

There is not hashtag for this. With a killer tag line "Bhalai ka supply" this is one aspect they could have focused on to improve reach. The numbers on youtube are low, so this may indicate that they didn't really put money behind their youtube campaign yet. Let's hold on to a judgement on that.