Idea cellular services in a new advertisement campaign have taken a jibe at Reliance Jio’s offering of 4G services. Reliance Jio has already been accused by incumbents that it has disrupted the Indian telecom market by continuously providing free calling and data services and even extending its offers. After Jio announced its free services, all other network providers had to cut their tariff rates for calling and 4G data packs. In the latest ad, Idea has mocked the Mukesh Ambani-owned network providing service and called out to people against using freebies and asked them to choose Idea 4G instead.
In one of the ads, we can see a conversation between a couple fo friends having a conversation in a car. They are seen parking a car in a no parking zone. While parking, one of the friends downloads a movie and praises Idea for being present in various parts of the country, while the other friends taunt him that the service is not free. Meanwhile, in another scene we see, the car which they illegally parked in a no parking zone getting towed away. We then hear a voice-over which says, “Free ki aadat mat dalo…isliye no freeG, Idea 4G.” which means, don’t get used to free services, so no freeG, instead Idea 4G.
In another add, we can see two roommates talking to each other where once is criticising Idea network for not being a free service like the film she has. Later we see the movie file getting corrupted. That is when the other friend pokes fun and explains how free services eventually cause problems.
Interestingly, in both the ads, there is no mention of any kind of tariff or plans, which makes this seem just an indirect jibe at Reliance Jio’s free services. Meanwhile, Idea is set to launch a variety of apps across movies, TV, music, games and others next week as part of its bid to transform into a full-fledged digital services company, in competition to the new entrant- Reliance Jio Infocomm. Idea, however, had said during an analyst meet after announcing its second-quarter results three months ago that it would not directly build content but would act as an aggregator.
