Campaign: Vodafone Red
Brand: Vodafone Red
Company: Vodafone India
Agency: Ogilvy India
The Campaign
One of the three ads in the campaign, it opens on a village headman getting fruits from all the villagers. The villagers bring him fruits of different sizes and types. He passes the fruit boxes on to the other villagers who are stationed atop a massive wooden juicer. Once all the fruits are put in it, he signals other men waiting by the side. They start turning the wheels of the juicer and instantly, orange juice trickles out from the bottom of the juicer. The leader takes a sip and as the villagers expectantly wait for his verdict, he breaks into a smile to show his full approval. Everyone cheers and share the juice and drink their fill. The message in the end says, ?Come together and share?. It then explains Vodafone Red’s Pool and Share feature – where you can form a group of your family members and pool and share your benefits like SMS, minutes and data to optimize your usage and minimize wastage.
The other two ads are on similar lines. In the first ad, a street musician finding no audience comes up with a contraption of several instruments strapped around his body to get everyone?s attention — an analogy for Vodafone Red?s combo plans where the customer can enjoy minutes, data and SMS allowances in a single plan. In the second, an entire village turns up to reduce the burdens of a lone traveller – again, an analogy to the brand?s dedicated relationship manager to whom subscribers of the top-end plans can address their queries to.
Our Take
Postpaid customers account for less than 6% of the mobile subscriber base, but account for one-fourth of a mobile service provider’s total revenues. Till now, most mobile service brands were addressing the prepaid customer through their advertising, but now they are turning their focus to postpaid customers with targetted offers. Postpaid is one of the key business drivers for Vodafone. Vodafone Red, an exclusive postpaid product, is targeted at tier 1 and 2 cities, which have premium post-paid users who are on plans ranging from R499 to R1,599 per month. While the size of their mobile bill may not necessarily be an issue for them, they are certainly interested in the value proposition of the plan they sign up. And therein comes the campaign.
Target audience determines the kind of treatment a brand gives to a campaign. For the global Indian who is Vodafone Red’s target customer, an exotic locale, quaint characters, an old-world charm is what works. And there is plenty of all these in this campaign. And to top it all, a kind of altruism woven into the stories without a quid pro quo that at times seem alien to the Indian landscape. Filmed in Spain, this campaign has a very Don Quixote kind of look. All these together create a pull factor among the premium audience who identify themselves with such a storyline.