Manmeet Sabharwal's Marketing Blog

Many a times branding,marketing and advertising might just not only be for profits,bottomlines,sales etc.It can also be for some cause.Aircel recently partnered with WWF for ‘Save Our Tigers’ social media campaign.I saw the ad for the campaign 2-3 days back and I just loved it.

It is in a form of simple but effective story.A cub is being shown alone waiting for its mother who might just not return from the forest.The number 1411 in the end leaves a mark.
Tiger is our national animal.It has been my favorite animal from the time i remember.Recently i went to Sanjay Gandhi National Park…

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There was a time when phone meant a landline handset lying in a corner of your house.Service,network were terms not heard of.Over the years the things have changed drastically and today we have dozens of new mobile players fighting for your personal handset .
Now the consumer is not restricted to just an Airtel or a Vodafone but he/she has choices.In recent past many new players have entered the market with a bang.
TATA Docomo,Aircel,Virgin,MTS entered the market in recent past (2008-2009) and gave a consumer the ‘choice’.The price wars started.1p/sec,1/2p/sec etc etc were terms used in daily conversations.
Now yet again a new player…

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So here it is finally,The Google Phone.Google has named it Nexus One.From past one or two days i was seeing this on many Google ads on different sites including mine.
So whats the offering ? Is it just another ‘me-too’ touch phone in the market or is it THE phone we had been waiting for ?
If it has Google’s name attached to it,it ought to be good.The initial reviews are good.

Analysts say the phone(to be sold directly to consumers) is not expected to dramatically alter the carrier-hardware vendor relationship the industry relies on, nor is it likely to yield a revenue…

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The Vodafone ZooZoos have become part of our lives in one way or the other.We keep seeing them on TV, Facebook or hoardings etc.But now get ready to see them on your T-Shirts,Mugs,beds,accessories and even bathrooms.

Vodafone and Shopper Stop have launched the all new ZooZoo merchandise.We were not seeing much of ZooZoos ads from some time but this is a new campaign involving them.
The price of the merchandise has been kept very nominal.E.g.The price of a ZooZoo T-shirt is Rs 299.A discount of 10% is also offered to existing Vodafone customers.
This is an excellent way to connect to the customers…

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Recently TATA Indicom launched a new plan called Pay Per Call Plan(PPCP).The main point of the plan is that it is a pay per call plan and not pay per minute or some duration plan.No matter how long you talk,you pay just one rupee.The plan sounds superb.But is it ?

Look at the ad above.It clearly says ‘End of counting minutes.Keep Talking’, I was very impressed by the plan on the first look.I thought TATA is creating waves in the telecom sector,first TATA Docomo pay per second,now pay per call by TATA Indicom.
Then things changed when i was asked by one…

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Few days back Samsung had launched this new cell phone called Samsung Marine.

The TV commercial was great.

The name Marine and the TV commercial sets the positioning straight and positions it as a waterproof phone.Shock Proof and Dust Proof were the additional qualities associated with it.The name Marine seemed apt.The whole ad was shot in  rafting boat.In the end of the commercial the phone is shown in water too.
Water Proofing is a major issue with phones.Many of my friends have lost their phones due to this problem.In Mumbai people carry their phones in plastic bags to avoid water seepage in rains.I nearly lost my cell phone to rains but somehow…

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Today morning i had an appointment with someone regarding a college event,so i had to go to lower parel.I took my bike and went along with a junior.I was enjoying the ride and the weather and suddenly at bandra and the areas that came after that,i saw some big hoardings.
While driving, I could not give full attention to it,On the first instant i thought Vodafone has come up with some kind of second phase of ZooZoo campaign,but why are the ZooZoos Yellow.Other instant i had a re-look at the hoarding again.There were humans with ZooZoo like yellow faces and whole…

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I just happened to see an interesting piece of info last night while searching google for ZooZoos and Vodafone.Actually i was searching why the famous Pug is back ?
I couldn’t really figure that out but found this .
Vodafone Won the First PETA India Glitterbox Award for its Animal-Friendly ‘Zoozoo’ Ad in May 2009.
And the news release was :
Mumbai – For leaving the competition in the dust with its “ZooZoo” ad, Vodafone has won the first of PETA’s 2009 Glitterbox Awards, which are given to businesses that take advantage of humane alternatives to the use of real animals in their ads.
“ZooZoo”…

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Telecom sector has risen in india in recent years.Even Recession could not halt its progress.India had a lot of players in the market Airtel,Vodafone,Reliance,TATA Indicom etc etc.
Major segments are GSM and CDMA which were well contested within boundaries.Airtel,Vodafone and Idea fighting it out in GSM domain whereas Reliance and TATA Indicom in CDMA.
Few days back Reliance entered the GSM market with Hritik Roshan leading the campaigns.So how could have TATA laid back and just played in the CDMA market.
Just today i got a glimpse of what they are coming up with on a TV channel TATA DoCoMo is what they…

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From past few days we have seen new ads from Virgin mobile featuring these animated characters.Red Colored,4 in total ,selling virign mobile free local calls.But dont these remind you of some other characters we have seen in the past.Yes the zoozoos.In the last post on Airtel i had written that Airtel stuck to their type of ads and marketing but today i just realized that virgin mobile has tried to do a zoozoo.
Check out the ads

Virgin Mobile V2V – Room Service from Campaign India on Vimeo.

Virgin Mobile V2V – Night Club from Campaign India on Vimeo.
These are 4 in total
…

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