Hutch: Colour coded

Back in 1995, using "Hello Bombay" as the tagline, and pitted against consumer electronics giant BPL, the campaign for the unknown Max Touch got underway. Says Narayan Kumar, executive creative director, TBWA Anthem, part of Mudra's creative team for Max Touch, "We consciously decided to cultivate the brand personality as foreign." The international pedigree was underlined by the baseline "World in your pocket", but local relevance was built using celebrities to endorse the brand ("Citizens of Mumbai"). Like Airtel, Hutch, too, needed to educate consumers about cellular telephony. So, it also had ads like "Can I call STD?", "Can I use my phone in a lift?" "What is airtime?" International was believed to be synonymous with sophisticated, and the customer service reflected that. Max Touch introduced Integrated Voice Response systems, and for face-to-face interactions, it had swanky customer spaces with smartly dressed executives who had been trained in customer relationships. "The advertising and the delivery of services were in tandem, something that continued with Orange and Hutchison affiliates," says Gangadharan Menon, director, Octane Communications, then a member of Narayan's creative team. Even as Hutch's communication appealed to the upper class, it was working on innovative product offerings: in 1996, it was the first cellular company to establish national roaming; later that year, it introduced over-the-counter prepaid cards. And if black proved to be Airtel's winning colour, Max Touch found orange worked for it. The almost accidental use of the colour in an ad campaign changed at the last minute from green - was fortuitous. In February 2001, Max Touch became Orange and the account shifted from Mudra to Ogilvy. By replacing a highly recognised brand with a virtual unknown in just two weeks, the new Ogilvy campaign redefined conventional communication strategies. In Mumbai, for instance, ads compared the cost of a mobile phone call to an inexpensive cutting chai.

A big success factor was how aspirational overtones in brand imagery stayed, even though price wars had started. Again, the colour orange was a seminal attribute; the brand's slogan was 'The future's bright, the future's orange'. The next year, though, it was time for another name change. Hutchison announced the creation of an umbrella brand, Hutch, although to confuse the issue further, Mumbai retained the Orange brand. The separate identities of the two brands were duly emphasised, although strategic sponsorships of theatre, music and art events overlapped - as did the use of orange colour. The new brandname also heralded the arrival of a new mascot, the "Hutch" pug. When Hutch launched the Abby-winning "Wherever you go our network will follow'" ad, viewers believed that was Hutch's new slogan, but it was just one brand attribute. Twelve other campaigns followed; each one with a single communication of a value-add, all stylised to be uniquely Hutch. "In a service business you can't have high imagery and low delivery. Effective branding has to be built on a bedrock of fundamentals of service - great network, customer service and great billing systems," Harit Nagpal, chief marketing officer, Orange had said a couple of months ago. Value-added services - such as "Privileges" (discount coupon booklets), cricket scores and stock market information - have formed as critical a part of Hutch's marketing efforts as its advertising. Other services like Hutch World (GPRS service), Hutch Alive (non-stop, streaming action) and Hutch4Help, a unique dial-in 'convenience' service, all emphasise the premium attributes of the service. But now there's Chhota Recharge, small value recharge cards (starting at Rs 10), which will also help mobilise small spenders. And now there's pink. Last month, Mumbai was overrun with billboards that simply said "Bye". A week later, the same billboards, along with the rest of the country, sported the Hutch tristar in a new, vivid pink. At the time, Naveen Chopra, corporate vice president, group marketing, Hutchison Essar, said, "The idea is just to refresh the brand, and inculcate a new 'Hutch spirit'." But the brand makeover had less to do with creating excitement and more with renouncing the Orange brand to Orange Telecom and creating the new pan-Indian Hutch brand.