The bugle for the marketing wars has been sounded and with the kick off of a new financial year, the competition amongst the mobile phone category is heating up. A study by Statistica suggets that the number of mobile phone users in India is expected to reach more than 730 million by 2017. Thus with the opportunity of magnificent growth looming ahead of them no mobile brand wants to leave any stone unturned towards getting a leg up through intelligent marketing.
Multiple strategies are being devised and numerical metrics are being worked upon. If we look closely into the market share of mobile vendors in the country the figures further elaborate on how interesting the mobile battle is; In August 2014, Counterpoint, a technology market research firm, reported that Micromax with a 16.6 percent market share overtook Samsung (14.4 percent) as the largest mobile phone supplier in Q2 2014. Micromax and Samsung were closely followed by Nokia (10.9 percent), Karbonn (9.5 percent), and Lava (5.6 percent).
However, the latest statistics have a different say all together; as per a report released by The International Data Corporation for India mobile phone market for Q4 2014, Samsung stayed on top with a 17 percent share, followed by Micromax with a 15 percent share, Nokia with a 10 percent share, Lava with an 8 percent share, and Intex also featuring with an 8 percent share. So with the rapidly changing market environment what can a mobile brand do to not only have a stronghold on their existing market but also expand its share in the process? Industry experts are of the opinion that experiential is going to be the key differentiator in this category as the behavior of a traditional Indian buyer are determined by factors like price, value, advertisement and mostly “experiences”.
Experientially the observation seems to be bang on as taking in consideration all the mobile vendors brands in the country Samsung clearly remains the top investor, followed by brands like Gioni, Karbonn, Micromax, Motorola and Google Nexus. So while experience generation and creation might not be a sure shot success mantra for the increasing brand popularity of a mobile vendor however it is one of the most crucial ingredient for the same. But what determines the kind of experiential campaign a brand should invest in? What is an ideal spent for a brand into experiential today? And, how can a marketer be sure that an investment in an experiential campaign will positively benefit his product.
Well, the answers to all these questions lie clearly when one begins to study the experiential campaigns of these brands. Experientially speaking Samsung as a global mobile giant obviously has the upper hand and dwelling into the history of their experience based campaign their position as the top market player seems well earned. Whether it’s the execution of BTL activations or a star studded launch of club Samsung, targeting the youth through contests with MTV to technological savvy new launches and from the initiative of a customer service plaza to ‘party on with chaton’ campaign, the brand has cleverly created a diverse range of experiences for their customers and hence is the most popular and trusted among the Indian mobile buyers.
It is without a doubt clear that the brand takes Indian market very seriously and hence wants to experiment within at multiple levels to maintain their top spot. The result of experiential ventures of Samsung makes evident the reasons behind the failure of other global mobile vendor giants such as Motorola, Apple and Google Nexus to capture a significant share in Indian Mobile Market. Since the latter brands have not contributed towards any significant experience building activities to their prospective customers their reach can be termed limited to the elite few. However, an interesting highlight of this race will be the entry of ASUS with Zenfone 2 which promises to be high to experiential activities this year.
And while most global giants have refrained from taking the route of experiential in the hearts of their customers it is the India mobile brands that are making significant attempts towards the same. While Gionee has recently associated with campaigns like Indian Digital Superstars, India Beach Fashion Week, Tour EDM and others its rival brand Micromax can also been seen investing in VH1 Rock Rules Concert, Mall activations, Telegram Service campaigns etc. The results are slightly visible as the brands are successfully climbing up the popularity and trust ladder among their customers.
Karbonn as an Indian mobile brand can be proclaimed to be the dark horse among the race as its unique experiential ventures such as Karbonn MTV Bloc Party, Fly Festival, SAFF championship and campus programs are not only targeted towards the youth but are also successfully resulting in its growth in overall market share.
With the targets ahead of them clearly outlined, the interesting aspect of the race will be the next marketing moves by these International and national mobile brands. And since the world of experiential full of possibilities and opportunities it can be safe to say that the ultimate success of the brands in the country is going to be strongly decided by experiential.
