Advertisements are a great way to sense the economy and industry.. Couple of years back telecom advertisements were all about coverage, sms cost, call cost etc. All the players were competing on call plans, coverage ( remember the vodafone pug ads? ).. Today, it is moving slowly into parameters like trust ( Idea ads ).. The industry matured in such a way that it was pointless to compete more on call or data prices or network coverage. These were taken as granted. Someone had to breakoff from the usual mode of competition into something else. Airtel tried it first, Idea followed ( what an idea sirjee - i think this was actually a wasteful campaign which did not reinforce or bring about anything new ).. Idea seems to have got its act correctly in the second wave of ads focussed on Trust. And, by far, it has been doing good financially as well
Another sector that is slowly getting into this mode of competing on something intangible is banking. Ads in banking were mostly about interest rates, home loans, atm network and all. I think thats slowly changing. Industry is slowly realizing that there is no point in competing further on these given parameters. Axis has come up with a few ads in those lines from this year beginning.
At the same time, auto sector - going through a severe slowdown - has just switched its gear in opposite direction. Car Ads over the last two three years were all about pride, comfort, brand image and things like that ( remember the Cheverlot Ads ). Even Tata Nano , the low cost, fuel efficient offering tended to focus more on pride, brand in its campaigns. Honda Amaze just turned the focus back on cost, mileage in its latest Ad - A clear indication that atleast for the forseeable future, for the passenger car industry its back to basics like cost of owning and running the vehicle
Typically the players who do such well thought switches in their marketing campaigns tend to be the outperformers. And this is one area where typically local players tend to adapt better than multinationals.
Another sector that is slowly getting into this mode of competing on something intangible is banking. Ads in banking were mostly about interest rates, home loans, atm network and all. I think thats slowly changing. Industry is slowly realizing that there is no point in competing further on these given parameters. Axis has come up with a few ads in those lines from this year beginning.
At the same time, auto sector - going through a severe slowdown - has just switched its gear in opposite direction. Car Ads over the last two three years were all about pride, comfort, brand image and things like that ( remember the Cheverlot Ads ). Even Tata Nano , the low cost, fuel efficient offering tended to focus more on pride, brand in its campaigns. Honda Amaze just turned the focus back on cost, mileage in its latest Ad - A clear indication that atleast for the forseeable future, for the passenger car industry its back to basics like cost of owning and running the vehicle
Typically the players who do such well thought switches in their marketing campaigns tend to be the outperformers. And this is one area where typically local players tend to adapt better than multinationals.
It'll be interesting to think about how and when Telecom industry will break out of this 'Trust' mode and move into something else. Like that, will we ever see Samsung or Apple compete on trust ? Or , is this 'trust' a last resort option when there is nothing else to compete on ?