CASE STUDY ON VODAFONE

Vodafone Essar was launched in India on 21st September 2007. Vodafone was welcomed in
India with the “Hutch is now Vodafone” campaign. The popular and endearing brand Hutch was
transitioned to Vodafone across India. This marked a significant chapter in the evolution of
Vodafone as a dynamic and ever-growing brand. This brand unveiled nationally through a high
profile campaign covering all important media.

Vodafone, the world’s leading mobile telecommunication company, completed the acquisition of
Hutchison Essar in May 2007 and the company was formally renamed Vodafone Essar in July
2007. The transition from Hutch to Vodafone is probably the largest brand change ever
undertaken in this country and arguably as big as any in the world. It is even larger than Hutch’s
own previous brand transitions. The migration from Hutch to Vodafone was one of the fastest
and most comprehensive brand transitions in the history of the Vodafone Group, with 400,000
multi brand outlets, over 350 Vodafone stores, over 1,000 mini stores, over 35 mobile stores and
over 3,000 touch-points rebranded in two months, with 60% completed within 48 hours of the
launch.

The Vodafone mission is to be the communications leader in an increasingly connected world –

enriching customers’ lives, helping individuals, businesses and communities be more connected
by delivering their total communication needs.

Vodafone’s Marketing Strategies: Hutch to Vodafone

Vodafone’s new advertising campaign in India carried on with the same popular pug that has
become a brand ambassador for Hutch. ‘Where ever you go, our network follows,’ was the
previous slogan with the pug following the child wherever he goes. Now, with Hutchison Essar
becoming part of the Vodafone Group, the new campaign had started with Vodafone Essar
earmarking Rs. 2.5 billion on the transition from Hutch to Vodafone. The main message of the
brand transition exercise: The new Vodafone is the same old Hutch. In the advertisement, the
pug sees a new home when it returns after an outing and feels the change is better. The new catch
phrase will be ‘Make the most of now.’

Vodafone had tied up with Star India to run a complete roadblock of its fresh campaign on the
entire network by unveiling the 24-hour nationwide rebranding campaign. Vodafone used all of
the commercial airtime across all 13 channels in five languages (Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi
and English) from 9 pm on 20 September to 9 pm on September 21. This exercise included TV
commercials, transition bumpers and contest spots to promote the Vodafone Essar brand.
Commercial spots had also been purchased on Sony.

Conventionally awareness for a new brand takes some time to build. However, Vodafone wanted
to achieve this task at the shortest possible time. Hence, Maxus and Star Network worked closely
to address this challenge and came up with the idea wherein during the day of the launch a
complete roadblock on the Star Network channels was conceptualized. Considering that the Star
Network is the lead network in India, this was the most apt platform for Vodafone launch. This
strategy helped not only in achieving build rapid brand awareness but also breaks the clutter
during such an important launch in the most happening category – telecom. This is a first of its
kind mega media initiative in India by any brand. While the campaign was heavy on television, it
also included all other media vehicles. The print campaign kicked off on 21 September, a day
after the television splash.

While the brand campaign had been addressing the transformation, the Company, on the other
hand was swiftly preparing for a price war in the Indian telecom space. Indeed, it was preparing
to provide mobile handsets to new subscribers at ultra-cheap prices, ranging from about $19 to
$25.

Vodafone Essar launched low priced cell phones in India under the Vodafone brand, and also co-
branded handsets sourced from major global vendors. By bringing in millions of low-cost
handsets from across the globe into India, Vodafone Essar distributed bundled handsets through
its existing 400,000 distribution outlets. By flooding the market with its low-cost handsets,
Vodafone also became a mass mobile phone brand like Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and Sony
Ericsson in addition to continuing as telecom services provider.

Previously, similar handset-driven expansion strategies to grow subscriber bases were adopted
by CDMA players, like RCOM and Tata Teleservices. Vodafone is the first GSM operator to
follow suit.

The Vodafone mission is to be the communications leader in an increasingly connected world –

enriching customers’ lives, helping individuals, businesses and communities be more connected
by delivering their total communication needs. Vodafone’s logo is a representation of that belief
– The start of a new conversation, a trigger, a catalyst, a mark of true pioneering.

Vodafone’s Advertising Strategies: Hutch to Vodafone

Advertising is probably one of the most frequently used vehicles for Rebranding, as it is fairly
easy, flexible and quick to change. It is a powerful way of reaching a broad or targeted audience
quickly and is effective at signalling a change in positioning, however real or broad that may be.
There are many examples of where advertising has either repositioned or strengthened brands,
other good examples of where advertising has built a new position for a brand or built a strong
emotional link with the public are where companies have created a sort of soap opera out of their
advertising.

The Advertising agency of Hutch and now Vodafone, Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), had a two-fold
task to achieve: announce the entry of Vodafone into India and highlight the metamorphosis of
Hutch into Vodafone. O&M realised that they had a fantastic property in the Hutch pug, which
they had been using for about five years. Therefore, to show the transition from Hutch to
Vodafone, O&M launched a rather direct, thematic ad showing the trademark pug in a garden,
moving out of a pink coloured kennel which symbolised Hutch making his way into a red one
that is the Vodafone colour. A more energetic, chirpier version of the ‘You and I’ tune associated
with Hutch was played towards the end, and it concludes with ‘Change is good. Hutch is now
Vodafone’.
O&M has also rolled out four Commercials featuring Hutch’s animated boy and girl,
‘introducing’ the new brand’s logo to consumers. The four creatives which were of five seconds
each included the duo peeping over a wall to see the logo; parasailing with the logo flying high
behind them; releasing a rocket bomb wherein the explosion reveals the logo; and lastly, drawing
curtains aside to show the logo.

Four other ads with the pug did the rounds of telly screens. These five and 10 second spots cast
the dog in situations where he, literally, saw red, using the colour as a visual mnemonic to
remember the brand by. The pug was shown in a red basket, popping up from a red cart, drying
himself on a red mat, and hiding in a red blanket. Each of these made use of the ‘Hutch is now
Vodafone’ tagline.

The print ads, in all major languages in several leading dailies, were kept unbelievably simple: a
still shot of the pug inside a red kennel. The same creative was used in outdoor hoardings as
well, in all the 16 circles in which Vodafone now operates.

It wasn’t easy integrating Vodafone with Hutch; the latter, as is known, is a subtle, understated
brand, while globally, Vodafone represents high energy, dynamism and young vitality – all
represented by its bright red speech mark logo. And so they put in elements such as a more
energetic tune and feel to the ads.

A few advertisements include:

 Hutch is now Vodafone: If you watch any of the star channels or tuned into 20-20 world
cup, you would have seen this ad. On 11 February 2007, Vodafone agreed to acquire the
controlling interest of 67% held by Cheung Kong Holdings in Hutch-Essar for US$11.1
billion and now had to rebrand itself so it has decided to run a new ad series which piggy
banked on Hutch’s dog mascot and the theme “Change is Good”. This required nearly
250 crores of spending by Vodafone but they have successfully painted the town red. An
interesting part of this campaign was on the opening day roadblock where they made a
deal with Star India so that besides them no other commercials were aired (apart from in-
channel promos) on the Star India’s channels for 24 hours.
 Vodafone Valentine Day Special Ads: Vodafone had released a simple and sweet ad for
musical greetings targeted at couples during the valentine week the feature of this
campaign is its simplicity and believability and is quite well received. It uses the
positioning “Make the most of now” enjoy the video
 Vodafone Chota Credit Ink Ad: This new ad had come as refreshing change and more so
that this ad takes a very refreshing look at school and at fountain pens. This ad creates a
wonderfully subtle message which really puts the point of chota (small) credit across.