HISTORY

Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) is an Indian broadband and telecommunications service provider based in Mumbai. It a subsidiary of the Tata Group, which operates under the brand name Tata Docomo in various Telecom circles of India. The company is also the market leader in the fixed wireless telephony market. The company's network has been rated as the 'Least Congested' in India for five consecutive quarters by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India through independent surveys. They entered the 'prepaid' segment by launching, under the Tata Indicom brand, its '100 % Sachai True Paid' offered across all its circles. Tata Indicom also offered a collection of 1,000 mobile games, the latest handsets, and new voice and data services such as BREW games, picture messaging, polyphonic ring tones, and interactive applications.

SWOT Analysis Strengths Flexible Plans Good Advertising Celebrity Brand Ambassadors Threats Competitors prices offering low Weakness Price competitions Untapped Rural Market

Opportunity Latest and low cost technology Value Added Services Fast expanding cellular Market

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CHANGES IN THE BRAND PERSONALITY, CORE VALUE, AND VALUE PREPOSITION

Brand Tata Indicom starts with having the brand name Tata attached to it and being inspired by the legacy. The core value of Tata that have been brought in is the sense of honesty, transparency and trust. This market is riddled with Conditions Apply and schemes that are taking consumers for a ride. So when they launched this service, they imbued upon a sense of what you see is what you get. The second being when you say you belong to the Tata Group, you are there to improve quality of life. Firstly they wanted someone who could express the core values of the brand, but later on, they needed someone to act out, as the story had to be narrated in consumer language; and they decided on Ajay & Kajol. Hence the commercial, Insaan phone leta hai baat karne ke liye! Tata Indicom Positioning its network capability as a unique differentiator, brand confident of a faster rollout of next generation services as India moves to adopt the new 3G technology. The core values on which Tata Indicom thrives are: crystal clear voice quality minimal call drops low electromagnetic radiation

They want that their customers will be able to experience the advantages of being on Tata Indicoms network, the change in its brand positioning by unveiling a full -fledged new brand campaign with an aggressive tagline Switch to Tata Indicom And Experience the Difference. And in late 2008 till now they change themselves from Experience the Difference to Suno Dil Ki Awaaz which is focused on Emerging India and empowering people to listen to their hearts and follow it. This change spins around the emotional quotient is perfectly crafted to ensure that people believe in the brand Tata Indicom. The new positioning clearly brings out the message that on the service aspect it gives you more clear reception and sound quality while the emotional benefit is that it encourages you to listen to your inner voice.

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CHANGES IN THE BRAND PRODUCT PORTFOLIO

According to Abdul Khan, President, Marketing, Tata Teleservices, There was a growing market there to reach out to, and every minute, a new generation mobile user walks in. They went back to people, and they realized that customer aspirations have catapulted they were in constant search for new, better and latest services. They were very clear customers dont love Indicom if they dont offer customers what they want! They will churn and go away, so they have to literally keep running to stay in the same place. From this inception, the brand has chosen to speak mass market. Indicom adopted the mass market route to target the first user. But today, interestingly, more than 30-40 per cent users are GSM add-ons, which is a huge paradigm shift. Looking at this, Tata moved on from being simply a mass market brand to being an aspirational brand, yet not abandoning the mass market approach completely. First pillar of strategy, they have to go on from being positioned as a Cheap Brand. There is nothing wrong in being low-priced, but if they also offer something more apart from that. Innovation is the second pillar of the companys strategy. Driving towards innovations, the company plans to leverage its product mobile Internet to connect with a significant target group, the youth. With the objective of showing off its VAS (value added service) offerings, Tata Indicom has conceptualized and executed an AFP (advertisers funded Programme), Fun on the Run, which airs on Zee TV and, as a branded reality show, showcases TV celebrities utilizing the services of the brand. The third pillar is the objective of driving Numbers by addressing the popular segment, which the company plans to do by offering exciting products, services and packages. Television accounts for the maximum share of the brands advertising pie.

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CHANGES IN THE BRAND CONSUMER PERCEPTION

Tata Indicom was one of the first telecom operators to offer CDMA mobile services in India. Launched in 1996, the brand is the youngest of the lot. Infact it was one the first brands to be analyzed in this blog. The launch of India's first prepaid plan with free incoming calls was followed by poor campaign promoting the brand. Indicom has come a long way since my first post on it. Now its one of the major players in the CDMA space with a market share of around 9.1 % in the highly competitive telecom market. Tata Indicom has been positioned earlier using the Do more live more platform. The brand has been investing heavily on this platform with high decibel advertising featuring Bollywood stars - Kajol and Ajay Devgan. Most of the initial campaigns were of bad taste with unnecessary dramatics and substandard humor. Later the brand mellowed down to a Let me tell you the benefits approach with Kajol acting as the brand expert. The new campaigns of Tata Indicom now talk about "Listening to your heart". The new campaign shows a small town girl making it big in athletics. The initial impression about the ad is positive. Its a well-made ad and its nice to watch. But when the ad was watched for the first time, a feeling had been somewhere before, the concept of Rags to Riches is has been one of the most used positioning platforms worldwide. So, no big idea again from the Tata Indicom. Branding has become an important element in telecom marketing in India. Now we are seeing a standardization of tariffs. Marketers are now trying to retain the customers through emotional connection with the brand. Another big advertising campaign which went very much wrong was the Tata Indicoms Ulta Plan. The rates were made like Local Calls (50 Paise/Sec) & STD (30 Paise/Sec). The Ad was made to grab the peoples attraction very OPENLY and quickly. Its just like surprising the audience saying something Out of the Box or saying something which makes the audience to get a feel like No-Sense, How can STD rates go down than Local etc. The Ads theme dates back to Hand Rickshaws Era and suddenly talks about the Mobiles local and STD calls which again sounds weird.

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WINING BRAND STRATEGIES

Tata was a late entrant in mobile service telephony, it was very difficult for them to penetrate into already cluttered market and make the already mobile using customers buy their services. Genesis was the advertising agency given the task to increase the worth in Goa. A strategy was planned to increase the number of connections and for that a right place was required with a sizable and mobile desirable population. As the initial study showed that GOA has over 50% of floating population, mostly foreigners spending their long vacations and also require some mode of communication In the initial stage entire Goa was colored with Tata Indicom, right from airport, bus stands, huge displays on beaches and hoardings at the prime locations. This gave a powerful start to Tata Indicom as Goa looked the place fully dominated by Tata Indicom. There was huge demand for Tatas new connection and the people who went out of Goa took along with them the strong image and impeccable service of TATA Indicom.

A full-fledged new brand campaign with an aggressive tagline Switch to Tata Indicom And Experience the Difference gave it a successful opening towards the market share. And in late 2008 till now they change themselves from Experience the Difference to Suno Dil Ki Awaaz which is focused on Emerging India and empowering people to listen to their hearts and follow it. This change spins around the emotional quotient is perfectly crafted to ensure that people believe in the brand Tata Indicom.

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FAILURE BRAND STRATEGIES

Tata Indicom Ulta Plan Mehangai (Inflation) we can find Price Raise everywhere the Reason why we are discussing on price raise (Mehangai) here on Telecom Talk is due to a Commercial released by Tata Indicom promoting on its newest plan called ULTA Plan. Tata Indicom has tried to teach its customers with a unique rather Crazy own way by introducing first of its kind, ULTA plan where the STD call Rates are Cheaper 30p/min than Local Call Rates 50p/min.

FUTURE OF THE COMPANY

Tata Indicoms CDMA and GSM platforms after October 2011 were with the unified brand Tata Docomo. TTL said it is planning significant investments to upgrade its CDMA network to deepen and widen its existing footprint. Tata Indicom is dead. The CDMA brand from Tata Teleservices got integrated (migrated/replaced/exorcised) to Tata Docomo. According to various news reports October 2011, the Indicom brand will be killed and the entire mobile telephony and related services will be brought under the Tata Docomo brand. By bringing the entire services under a common brand, Tata Teleservices will be able to reduce the marketing costs and avoid brand confusion. But a dead brand is a dead brand. For me every dead brand is a failed brand. Tata Indicom as a brand was not able to create any strong image in the consumer mind space.
Source: Hindu Times, October 19th, 2011

Rebranding On 20 October 2011, Tata DoCoMo brought its brands - CDMA, GSM, Walky (Fixed Wireless Phone), Photon, INTERNET - under the Tata Docomo name. All subscribers to these services were migrated to the Docomo brand on 20 October 2011. The companys other brands - Virgin Mobile and T24 - are not part of the rebranding and will retain their names.

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