Ufone Brand Audit

Table of Contents
BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Company Origin .................................................................................................................................... 3
Analysis Of The Industry ....................................................................................................................... 3
Consumer Analysis ................................................................................................................................ 3
Brand Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 5
Brand inventory......................................................................................................................................... 6
Service Segmentation: .......................................................................................................................... 7
Target Market: ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Target Marketing Strategy: ................................................................................................................... 7
Positioning: ........................................................................................................................................... 7
Ufone Slogan ......................................................................................................................................... 7
Ufone Logo ............................................................................................................................................ 7
Pricing Strategy: .................................................................................................................................... 8
Distribution Strategy ............................................................................................................................. 8
Promotion strategy: .............................................................................................................................. 8
Advertising Media: ................................................................................................................................ 8
SWOT analysis of the brand ...................................................................................................................... 9
Strengths ............................................................................................................................................... 9
Weakness ............................................................................................................................................ 11
Opportunities ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Threats ................................................................................................................................................ 11
Refer to the Course material ................................................................................................................... 12
Brand Assessment Framework ........................................................................................................... 13
Brand Identity Model .......................................................................................................................... 14
Visual Brand Element Assessment ...................................................................................................... 15
Touch-point Map ................................................................................................................................ 16
Strategic brand management recommendations ...................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

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 BACKGROUND

Company Origin
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) started its operations in January 2001
under the brand name 'Ufone'. As a result of PTCL's privatization, in 2006, Ufone became a part
of the Emirates Telecommunication Corporation Group (Etisalat).
Ufone has always focused on the people of Pakistan, empowering them with the most relevant
communication modes and services that enable them to do a lot more than just talk, at a price
that suits them the most. Along with the claim of lowest call rates, clear sound and best network,
Ufone offers its customers simplified tariffs with no hidden charges. With a strong and uniquely
humorous communication direction that has now become Ufone's signature across all advertising
media, Ufone gives its customers many reasons to smile.
The subscriber base of Ufone is over 24 million and has network coverage in 10,000 locations,
across all major highways of Pakistan. Ufone currently caters for International Roaming to more
than 288 live operators in more than 160 countries. Ufone also offers Pakistan's fastest growing
3G network and BlackBerry Roaming coverage available with more than 200 Live Operators
across 122 countries. Ufone has also become a focused and intensive leader in VAS, constantly
introducing innovative services, which have been the first of their kind in the Pakistani cellular
industry. Ufone invested around $ 65 million to setup its modern technical infrastructure to
provide high quality crystal clear voice and fast data transmission.

Analysis Of The Industry

List Of Telecom Companies In Pakistan
 Mobilink
 Telenor Pakistan
 Ufone
 Warid
 Zong

Consumer Analysis
Trends
The telecom industry remains one of the most vibrant and dynamic global markets; as more and
more people are getting connected, new applications and services are being developed and users’
online experiences are expanding throughout the world. The rapid growth of the ICT market has
important implications for both users and businesses. For users—both individuals and
businesses—there is an ever-expanding variety of services and applications to serve their
information, communication and entertainment needs. As a result, the ways consumers access

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and use such services is changing; moving from reliance on traditional media to Internet
broadband services.

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 Brand Analysis

Ufone targeted the middle class, by introducing low rates and different packages with Urdu
names like Jazba etc. to attract lower and middle class of the country. Ufone has expanded its
customer support in a very organized manner with a planned network of dealers, outlets for
people convenient. Ufone is committed to care for its customers even after they have acquired a
new connection. Ufone not only focused on the technical capabilities, but to provide subscribers
a convenient to get connections and services. Ufone recently started GPRS through which users
can connect themselves to the global village via Internet, also introduced multimedia messaging
services and worldwide SMS at flat rates. Not only SMS but also provides Ufone Info service
through which user can get latest information about news, sports, religion, horoscope, stock
exchange etc even live sports updates.
The tariff packages have been designed keeping in mind the requirements of every segment of
the society may that be a housewife, a taxi driver, a trader or a student.
Ufone’s strategy from the day one was to change this scenario and ensure that mobile phones are
turned into an everyday business and personal communication tools for all. This approach
brought about a revolution in the market; increasing its size five fold in a mere two years.
Ufone’s own performance in these two years has been exemplary, as it surpassed all financial
and marketing goals. Despite Ufone’s strategy to provide a high standard of service rather than
increasing subscriber base without capacity, it has achieved a substantial market share in a
market ten years older than itself.
While keeping its tradition of being the trend setter in the industry, Ufone changed the image of
mobile phones from a luxury only affordable by the elite, to a necessity affordable by the
common man. Since its inception, Ufone has positioned its brand for masses. In keeping with the
upcoming competition and market dynamics, Ufone increased its focus on the youth segment
(which comprises 50% of the population), with the Prepay brand. By designing market focused
products, Ufone’s brand team launched aggressive campaigns, which further increased the brand
equity. The new brand image gained huge popularity amongst the targeted market. A recent
marketing survey conducted by a prominent marketing research company showed that Ufone has
considerably increased its brand visibility and image. Ufone’s Prepay brand is now considered to
be one of the most favored brands by the youth market and is followed by other mobile operators
launching their respective brands for the youth market.

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 Brand inventory

Value added services provided by Ufone

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Service Segmentation:
Ufone has segmented its entertainment and value added market on four bases
 Economy: Upper class , middle class, socio-economic class, lower class
 Age: Teenagers, youngsters and middle age
 Gender: Male and Female
 Occupation: Student, Corporate class, Business Class, Labor

Target Market:
Ufone is targeting youth, students, corporate class, business class, labor class. The company is
trying to be pioneer in taking value added services to its peak by providing vast variety of value
added services

Target Marketing Strategy:

Ufone has always targeted youth market or specific by using young brand endorsers or
ambassadors. It always brings such packages and offers that precisely meet the needs of
particular segment.

Positioning:
Positioning is the process of creating an image of company’s brand services in the minds of
market. Companies positions services emotionally, functionally or on the basis demand that is
being generated in particular market. Ufone is market challenger as compared to market leader
Mobilink. Ufone positions itself on the basis of services to reach the top most position of cellular
companies.

Ufone Slogan
“Tum hi to ho!”
Ufone Logo

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Pricing Strategy:
Ufone follows market penetration pricing strategy to meet the customer needs and the ever
changing price competition. Pricing has always been the core differentiation of Ufone. Ufone is
offering least off-network call rates. Ufone strive to offer lowest call rates in market. They offer
packages to each class and facilitate with most suitable packages. Postpaid pricing strategy is
also reasonable.
Some of the packages offered by Ufone are
 30sec package
 Uthnon stop offer
 Uwon
 Tension free basic packages
 Lady’s package
 Life plus
 Ucircle life plus…

Distribution Strategy
Ufone is offering efficient and friendly customer services through 200+ sales and customer
service centers across Pakistan.
The distribution channels include Ufone Sales & service center, Ufone franchise sales & service
centers.

Promotion strategy:
The message content of Ufone Ads is humorous and youthful excitement. Ufone uses colorful
and eye catching themes with bright green and orange colors in ads. For entertainment and
humor purpose Ufone hired comedians trio featuring Faisal Quraishi, Mikaal and Hammad.

Advertising Media:
 Print media
 Broadcast media
 Display media online media
 Events

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 SWOT analysis of the brand
Stren Weak
gths  Latest ness  Less
technolog covera
y ge in
 Governm remote
ent areas
backing  Not
 Good targeti
quality
service
 Pakistan’

Opportu
nities  They can
SW Thre
ats  Legal
start
their
services
OT environmen
t,
government
in other interference
cities of  Mobilink is
Pakistan also going
 As they to introduce
are the some new
subsidiar technology
y of and
Pakistan committed

Strengths
 Ufone has the latest technology as compared to any other mobile company which gives
the company an edge over its competitors
 As Ufone is backed by the government, the company has access to government findings
which could be utilized in order to introduce the new technology
 The company also provides good quality service at economical prices.
 It is Pakistan's second largest GSM network
 Ufone has an established customer base including lower middle class due to its superior
quality coverage and affordable packages
 As mentioned earlier, Ufone has less rate than competitors providing value for money to
the customers
 Due to its high coverage, Ufone is the only company present in all four provinces of
Pakistan

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  One of the biggest strength of Ufone is its highly motivated and trained work force which
has helped the company in becoming one of the prominent brands in telecom industry

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Weakness
 Even though Ufone has its presence all over Pakistan, it does faces with the problem of
less coverage in remote areas
 Ufone is more focuses on serving its urban base customers therefore, the company isn’t
currently targeting the rural areas at the moment
 As it’s a growing network, Ufone needs to have proper plans to cater the excessive
demand which is not observed currently.

Opportunities
 As mentioned earlier, Ufone is currently not focusing on the rural areas of Pakistan; this
does present the company with an opportunity to serve in these areas in the near future.
 Ufone has the opportunity target corporate sector of the country which is currently
captured by Mobilink

Threats
 Ufone, with all the other telecom companies in Pakistan, faces legal, environment and
government interference
 PTCL has been given license for cellular operation which could result in Ufone losing its
government support
 Mobilink is also going to introduce some new technology and committed to invest more
in Pakistan
 Zong, Mobilink and Telenor phone have more coverage in different cities of Pakistan
then Ufone
 High taxes are being imposed on the telecom industry of Pakistan

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 Refer to the Course material

Brand Equity Pyramid

Brand Equity Pyramid is model used to organize brand equity components. Left side of this
model illustrates the rational characteristics and emotional characteristics are placed on the right.
Brand may succeed by taking either the ‘rational route’ or ‘emotional route’ but, the strongest
brands are built by going up both sides of the pyramid simultaneously, connecting with
customers through compelling features and rationales coupled with emotional bonds.

The five steps of the brand pyramid for Ufone can be summarized (from bottom to top) as
follows:

RESONANCE JUDGEMENTS
• Affirms • Reliable
identity • Tech
as a savvy
youthfu youngster
l brand s
CATEGORY
The communication
network with the best
coverage with the most
affordable price

FEELINGS
• Very customer centric

Ufone brand is primarily oriented towards youth of the country. In view of the increasing
demand of telecommunications within the country, the brand has position itself so perfectly
amongst its target group that each and every individual can relate to it in one form or another.

Through various promotions and advertisements, the brand communicates the important of
family and friends which connected the customers on an emotional level. This creates

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sentimental values for the customer. The brand furthers these sentimental values by introducing
economical packages without the comprising on the quality of service. These initiatives, entices
the customer connect to with the brand on an emotional level and they don’t see Ufone as just as
another service provider. Simply put, tagline for Ufone can easily be changed to ‘Network for
the Youth’.

Brand Assessment Framework

This brand assessment framework differentiates amongst the brands’ distinctive and shared traits.
The overlapping area of brand strength and customer wants and needs identify those ideas or
traits that are important to customers and unique to the brand. These are the ‘potential
differentiators’. Similarly, the overlapping area between competitor strength and customer wants
and needs defines the ideas that are unique to competitors and important to customers. These are
‘potential vulnerabilities’ for a brand that are required to be mitigated through effective brand
strategy and execution

Ufone has position its brand strategically amongst the concerned areas. It has aimed to
strengthen its overall brand by adopting the low priced market penetration strategy as well as
target the youth population of the country which constitute significant portion of the overall
populous. Furthermore, the brand has aimed to keep up with the updated technology such as
introduction of MNP system and 3G and services. However, keeping in view the increasing
business potential within the telecom industry, Ufone has start facing higher level of
competition. These competitors are competition with Ufone on different fronts, such as Mobilink

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increasing customer base, Zong focusing its products on youth population as well as introducing
4g services within the country etc.

Brand Identity Model

The brand identity model discussed below is a version of Jean-Noel Kapferer’s “Brand Identity
Prism” framework in which he identified six aspects of brand identity. According to Kapferer,
these brand aspects can only come to life if our brand communicates with its customers. The
brand identity model for Ufone is as follows:

The brand was launched with clear objective to become the first choice of the young generation
of the country. Ufone positioned its image as the one who promotes joy and values relationship
above anything else.

Furthermore, the brand positioned its self as one of the economical brand which can address the
needs of all the middle and lower class people. Also, the brand aimed to became the pioneer in
having comical and amusing outlook toward life. As the brands is more oriented towards the
youth who are more aggressive and resilient, therefore its products, promotions and
advertisement reflect the same enthusiasm, that is one of the reasons the Ufone can easily relate
to its target customers.

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Visual Brand Element Assessment

Choosing the brand elements is a curtail step for the organization but once the brand elements are
selected, consistent use is very important to establishing the brand’s visual and verbal identity.
As we know that the tasks of creating products, communications and experiences, are performed
by several individuals, it is important to have a set of brand guidelines that apply across all touch
points, campaigns, web sites, products, etc. The visual brand elements of Ufone are as follows:

Green color is usually associated with color of life, renewal and energy. Ufone has build its
brand upon similar concept, as it is targeting youth which in themselves represents enthusiasm,
energy and full of life, through this particular color scheme, the brand is associating itself with
the specific nature of the target market. Also, to further is relations to its customers the name of
the brand ‘Ufone’ and its tagline (as mentioned above) spells out the connection which Ufone
intends to have i.e., Ufone is and only because of its customers.

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Touch-point Map

In order to map brand experience, we can divide all the touch points into three different areas,
namely,

1. Before the sale

2. During the sale and
3. After the sale

In order to calcify the touch points, we first need to identify all the ways in which customers
interact with our brand at each point in the purchase process after which these key touch points
are prioritized according to its

 impact on customer perceptions

 size of the gap between today and tomorrow
 cost of implementation
 cost-benefit, and
 touch point's ability to help organization in achieving longer term goals

In the end, the critical touch points are to be carefully measured and examined in order to ensure
that they live up to the brand promise.

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With regards to the touch point, Ufone was able to differentiate with its customers, prior to the
service. Even at the time of the introducing its brand in the market, Ufone interacted with its
prospective customers as they played a pivotal role in selection of the brand name in itself.
During the process, more of the task are similar to other telecom operators etc., such as
evaluation of customers and required network plan. However, after the sale, Ufone introduced
various value added services which are considered very positively by the customers, such as
home delivery and after sales services.

Recommendations

To devise a proper recommendation we first need to understand the segments existing in the
market. So we took a collaborative research from an agency which used the sample size of 3000.
After a thorough research, 5 segments were identified. These 5 segments are:

1. Skype loving penny pinchers

2. Entertainment loving young males
3. Tech savvy young males
4. Affluent young females
5. Conventionalists

Skype loving penny pinchers

 Majority of them are young males and young females

 Belongs to SEC B, urban areas

 Doing less down loading comparatively

 Download songs, video clips, do chatting on Facebook and they are high users of Skype
comparatively

 Spend money carefully, visit different stores to purchase things on good prices

Entertainment loving young males

 Majority of them are young males

 Belongs to SEC B & C, rural areas

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  Download songs, use Facebook for chatting and liking comments, updating status and use
internet for entertainment

Tech savvy young males

 Majority of them are young males

 Belongs to SEC B, urban areas

 Highly download songs & video clips

 Use Facebook for chatting and updating status, do browsing, streaming and stay
connected with friends and family

 Keep themselves updated from modern technology

Affluent young females

 Majority of them are young females

 Belongs to SEC A & B, urban areas

 Download songs, video clips and do chatting & like comments on Facebook

 Like to watch TV dramas and films

Conventionalists

 Majority of them are young males

 Belongs to SEC B, rural areas

 Download songs, video clips and games, do searching & chatting on Facebook

 Feel good in working with own hands

 Want to do something for family and country

 Give priority to Pakistani product and like to wear Pakistani dresses

By keeping these segments in the view, we compared Ufone’s performance in segments. For top
of mind awareness, it is in close battle with Mobilink in Skype penny pinchers.

Furthermore, Mobilink is the primary brand for the most of the consumers, and then comes
Ufone. Clearly they are not leading in this segment either.

In addition to this, most of the tech savvy males are satisfied with Ufone; however, not all the
segments are satisfied.

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The research shows that Ufone needs to get hold of one segment and tap the market in order to
become the market leaders. Till date, they are ranking the 3rd, and this is the only way they can
move up.

Additionally, to make Ufone the primary brand Ufone can beat the other operators by hitting the
tech savvy young males (beat Zong and Telenor in this segment) and Skype pinchers (beat
Mobilink) by providing better packages more appealing and emotional advertising.

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