If the pug doesn't make you go weak at the knees, the Zoozoos or Bollywood-turned Hollywood actor Irrfan Khan will. Vodafone, the world's largest telecoms company by subscribers, has in India a closet full of options that it keeps revisiting to keep consumers interested in its products, services and offers. But it's not only human, canine and egg-headed brand ambassadors that the telco counts on to create a buzz. It also has concept campaigns like 'Vodafone Delights', which was first introduced last October with commercials depicting a budding friendship between two schoolgirls who would go out of their way to treat the other.
In its latest advertising campaign, the Indian arm of Britain-based telco has fallen back on 'Vodafone Delights,' to promote special offers including happy hours, gifts for consumers on their birthdays and on every visit to the telco's 8,000 stores across the country.
This year, one of the new advertisements shows a growing friendship between a young boy and an old man. The old man rewards the boy with gifts emerging from magic tricks each time the boy visits the old man's house.
Ogilvy & Mather, which has been producing stellar ad campaigns for the company for the past 10 years, was given the mandate to develop a campaign that had the emotional resonance of the earlier campaign.
The third largest mobile phone company in India with more than 150 million subscribers said it had a new set of products that demanded 'something different.'
Its new products include a special offer to Vodafone customer who visit telco's store. The customer gets special offer every month, like additional talk time, for instance - on their birthdays. Vodafone will also introduce discounted tariffs on calls and messaging between 2 pm and 4 pm every day.
This six-week long campaign will be backed by full-scale media exposure on television, radio, print, outdoor, on ground, digital and online.
This is not the first time Vodafone has brought back a concept to offer something new for its customers. When launching mobile number portability in January last year, Vodafone resurrected Cheeka the Pug.
The key canine inheritance from Hutch has been a symbol of 'best quality service' for Vodafone since it began operations in India in 2003. Vodafone retained it, banked on it consistently to bring new products and drew massive brand recall.
Again early this year, the telco pasted large banners of the pug across the country to popularize its 'superior' network quality. This time, the campaign was aimed at drawing a large group of 79 million customers from mobile operators whose licences were cancelled by the Supreme Court.
"The Pug is a strong symbol of Vodafone, what used to be Hutch, and it associates a loving feeling with us. It helped us grow from 35 million customers to where we are now. It helped us transform to Vodafone without losing the brand's warmth.
Today, it signifies what's good about the brand and has a universal appeal," said Anuradha Aggarwal, vice-president brand communications and insights at Vodafone's India arm.
In April 2009, the mobile phone company hit the jackpot when it introduced the Zoozoos in their campaigns. The egg-shaped headed characters that talked gabble were launched in April 2009 during the second season of the Indian Premier League to promote a bouquet of value-added services.
With 30 advertisements depicting different services, Vodafone set advertising benchmarks for all Indian brands. Facebook's page on Zoozoo's has more than 3.4 million fans and counting even after three years of launch.
The Zoozoos were reborn with super powers in the consequent IPL season as Super Zoozoo to promote Vodafone's 3G services. Vodafone also launched Adventures of Super Zoozoo, an online comic series on Facebook in January this year which can be viewed by any mobile subscriber.
"There is more pressure from peers than consumers to deliver... we're our own big critics and we know that there's no point in boring consumers," said Kapil Arora, country head - team Vodafone at Ogilvy & Mather.
Vodafone India also relies on film actor Irrfan Khan-the telco's sole flesh-and-bone brand ambassador who has been associated since the Hutch days."Khan's amazing ease in connecting with the masses made him the perfect choice to market value products like cheaper night calling tariffs," Aggarwal said.
"We have tried to keep the iconography alive with each brand ambassador but we have been selective in giving them outings... making them desirable for consumers by creating curiosity," Aggarwal said. The strategy of following different streams of communication has worked for them brilliantly so far, with a few hiccups.
An animated continuously-talking parrot to promote its bonus card-which was introduced shortly after Zoozoo mania swept the nation-faded from public memory rather quickly. The IPL 2012 campaign featuring yesteryear's tele-matches recreated in a small village near Prague, Czechoslovakia with real people and giant-sized props was limited in appeal and connect.
Vodafone's attempted sequel to the BlackBerry Boys campaign also failed to inspire.
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