WPP partnership in practice

Case 71/2008

Vodafone Transition from Hutch to Vodafone in India

The Turkish Vodafone migration set the bar high for India. The Indian team raised the bar and the migration process to Vodafone from Hutch was again a great collaboration between global and local teams. Ogilvy India have driven the 360-degree integration, working with the Vodafone Global team very effectively to produce great work with great results. A very tough act for the next country to follow!

David Wheldon Global Director, Brand Vodafone

How do you transition a brand that is part of national consciousness? How do you get your employees, trade partners and 35 million customers, who are perfectly satisfied with their current brand, to welcome an absolutely new brand overnight? The simplicity and comprehensive nature of the Hutch to Vodafone transition campaign was a perfect example of the successful entry of a new brand into a market.
WPP lead company Ogilvy & Mather, India WPP partner companies WPP Team Vodafone, London Maxus, Mumbai OgilvyOne, Mumbai Ogilvy Action, Mumbai Added Value, UK Fitch, London

Project summary
Business issues Hutch, the second largest GSM brand in the Indian telecom market had been bought by Vodafone. A leading player in the high-growth Indian market, Hutch enjoyed considerable brand equity. It was also a well-loved brand in terms of its unique imagery and award-winning communication. In making the transition to Vodafone, it was important to carry forward this equity and exceed expectations. The objectives for the exercise were to carry along 35 million customers, 400,000 trade partners and 10,000 employees through the transition and, even more importantly, to enthuse existing stakeholders and potential customers with the possibilities offered by Vodafone. Time frame The entire project including positioning, retail identity, campaign development and implementation was carried out in less than four months, from June to September 2007. In order to meet this tight time frame, a large amount of work was carried out in parallel, effectively leveraging the strengths of the network agencies. Ogilvy, Added Value and Team Vodafone worked in conjunction to develop the India positioning for Vodafone by July. The briefing for the campaign took place in July. Working with Team Vodafone and Maxus, Ogilvy arrived at and developed the idea, launch campaign and launch strategy by August. The touch point list alone, for this project, included over 3,000 different elements. Working in conjunction with the OgilvyOne team and Fitch, the Ogilvy team developed and executed the entire list in just 45 days so that from Day One 21 September 2007 the consumer would experience a whole new brand. Partnership activity Getting India to love Vodafone the transition demanded an intensive engagement with every arm of the WPP teams. And the network responded with its very best. Five WPP agencies came together to help create magic on 21 September 2007. The Ogilvy team played the role of Brand Team leader: their first task was to internalise the new brand and its tone of voice, which required intensive training across offices. The Ogilvy team took this task forward and cascaded the new brand to 16 circle teams across six cities. This helped develop work that spoke the Vodafone tone of voice from Day One. A comprehensive research campaign study led by Added Value was followed by intensive workshops involving the key stakeholders at Ogilvy and Maxus. Fitch was briefed not to just redesign the store signage but to create a whole new store experience for the Vodafone customer. At every interaction point with the consumer, the brand required a new look in line with the new brand promise. That meant changing everything from the internal forms to the uniform of the security guard. The launch campaign, one-on-one communication with existing customers and customer touch-point elements were developed by Ogilvy and OgilvyOne. Unlike most re-branding exercises, which are phased over time, Maxus had to execute the transition overnight across the country. There was a firstof-its-kind alliance with Star (Indias largest TV network) where the entire advertising was bought for Vodafone for 24 hours across all the networks 13 channels the worlds first 24-hour TV roadblock. Ogilvy Action put up over 20,000 high-visibility outdoor sites overnight, using over 2 million square feet of vinyl. Outputs The launch was the most talked about event in Indian media, with over 450 articles. An entire episode of CNBC covered the transition as a case study. Day-after brand recall for Vodafone was 80% proclaimed by the industry and media as one of the best brand-launches the country has ever seen. Thirty-five million customers transitioned seamlessly into brand Vodafone. And within six months of launch, it became the brand of choice for over 44 million subscribers. It was the fastest, most comprehensive and most effective launch witnessed within the Vodafone network. And has today been proclaimed as the benchmark for all forthcoming launches for Vodafone.

For more information contact: Vanessa Edwards Telephone +44 (0)20 7408 2204 Fax +44 (0)20 7493 6819 vedwards@wpp.com

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