Mktg - India;Telecom 'calls out' with innovations on bus Q shelters

Surina Sayal

Mobile being an on the move communication device, why not choose an on the move (read out of home) medium to advertise the service and the product? That’s exactly what telecom players in the country are doing. Today, telecom is one of the biggest spenders outdoors. Handset as well as service providers choose the out of home medium to communicate to the masses effectively. OOH media major JCDecaux recently worked on three new bus Q shelter innovations in the capital for telecom players such as Tata Indicom, Nokia and Vodafone.

For the launch of Blackberry, Tata Indicom wanted a larger than life format. Thus, in Delhi, JCDecaux transformed the complete facade of the MUPI (multi-photon ionisation) panel situated adjacent to the bus shelter to make it look like a giant Blackberry phone. Acrylic sheet with self adhesive vinyl was used for the purpose. The backlit MUPI panel lent itself to attractive after dark advertising and the blue light on the Blackberry grabbed eyeballs.

It was strategically executed at Golf Club Road, a prime location in the heart of the city, and has already created a buzz. The promotion has established its set of admirers, including pedestrian traffic and vehicular traffic. People are actually stopping their cars to take a look at the innovation.

For handset manufacturer Nokia, eleven bus Q shelters spread across the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) area were employed to promote the Nokia XpressMusic phone. A three-dimensional phone was placed inside the MUPI panel. This made it look as if a large Nokia phone was actually placed in it. A lively headphone was also placed on top. The headphone added vibrancy to the regular MUPI panel.

The third innovation was done for service provider Vodafone’s two day music sale for its customers. The MUPI panel was dressed up to look like a person carrying an assorted stack of CDs. The backlit portion of the bus shelter, too, had a similar image with the Vodafone branding, making it look like CDs stacked on a shelf.

This was strategically done at the bus shelter outside Aga Khan Hall in Connaught Place, Delhi, where the music sale took place.

Rahul Kakar, sales manager, JCDecaux India, tells afaqs!, “The marketing team of Tata Indicom, comprising of Ashish Mehrotra and Priyaranjan Singh, along with their outdoor agency Aaren Initiative, briefed us about the launch. That’s when JCD conceptualised the innovation and suggested them to execute such an innovation.”

He adds, "For Vodafone, its creative agency Ogilvy gave us a clear cut brief to exhibit the innovation. For Nokia too, JCDecaux India was given the elements on which the company wanted to communicate innovatively and that is when the innovation was conceptualised. We suggested their agency Aaren Initiative and they gave us a go ahead."

The response to these innovations has been great and has been appreciated by key agency people. It has also attracted the eyeballs of many. Kakar says, “At JCDecaux India, we are trying to keep up with our global standards of quality and ensuring that the final product has a ‘wow’ factor attached to it.”

JCDecaux took three to five days to execute each innovation. The company did not share the cost details of creating such innovations that includes production cost and media loading charges, over and above the advertisement fee for the bus Q shelters.

It is interesting to note how all these innovations were for telecom players. Kakar says, “We think that the telecom segment is pushing OOH innovations as differentiators as these communicate with the masses. It helps the brand to communicate in an innovative fashion and grab the eyeballs of many. But each and every category is open to try out of the box concepts.” He shares that FMCG and apparel brands are also experimenting with innovations.

Praveen Vadhera, country head, 141Wall Street (the OOH division of Bates 141 that handles Aditya Birla Group’s Idea Cellular), says, “In fact, telecom is not ‘one’ of the biggest spenders, but ‘the’ biggest spender on outdoor today. With about 8-15 per cent of their budgets going into outdoor, they are bigger spenders than the FMCG or even the media segment.”

He explains, “You see, media as a category would need to advertise outdoor only in 20-25 markets, whereas telecom, due to its widespread nature, would need to advertise in about 500-600 towns.” This is because of two reasons.

Firstly, for telecom, the local scenario is extremely important. While a telecom player’s brand campaign will be aired on television, in local circles, tactical, value-added services, promotions-led or tariff-led campaigns are released. In this scenario, OOH is the most cost effective media for localised communication.

Secondly, with the current scenario of competition amongst telecom players, it is extremely important to maintain top of mind recall. Outdoor being an involuntary and non-intrusive medium tends to deliver this.

The science of the medium apart, as viewers of the outdoor medium, all we can say is the more the innovations, the merrier. So while telecom is riding this wave, hopefully other categories will catch up, too.