Tata's and Virgin Corporation came together in 2008, to launch GSM mobile services in India, as Virgin Mobile. It was launched with heavy fanfare, with new innovating schemes and youthful advertising. It came up with "Hatke" schemes like "Earn 10paise on incoming" and "Free SMS". But it seems, that even after lot of path-breaking marketing efforts, and even being backed by huge corporations, it couldn't find its space in consumer's evoked set. One of the major reasons could be huge competition in telecom sector, leaded by brands like Airtel, Reliance and Vodafone. Its been an year after the launch. Let's analyze its shortcomings from the customer's perspective.
1) New Users : Virgin mobile targeted youth, who could be the first time buyers of mobile in urban areas. Consumers enjoyed their fun-filled advertisements, but this liking never turned to purchase. Reason, Virgin being new! Consumers doubted quality and availability of their services, throughout India. Virgin couldn't break this perception of consumers, that even being new, it has good service all over India. Virgin never used brand Tata to promote itself. Brand Tata would have added credibility to its service, as it being already into industry as strong CDMA player.
2) Existing Users : Virgin Mobile failed to convince consumers to switch their services from Airtel, Vodafone, etc. to Virgin Mobile. Even being switching cost not so high, there is some sought of loyalty seen in telecom industry. A Vodafone user usually doesn't switches its service to some other service, until he/she is extremely dissatisfied by the brand. Or some other telecom player gives him/her enough good reasons, to change.
3) New Markets : Players like Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance and Tata Indicom are trying to expand their customer base by entering into rural markets of India, as huge potential is hidden there. But Virgin Mobile, targeted itself to urban youth, which is already been captured by existing players. Moreover, being new, it didn't have infrastructure to support rural market needs, i.e. lower calling rates, low priced handsets, better service.
To grow organically, either Virgin Mobile should add more content to its advertising or use the brand Tata to add its credibility.
What's your take on it???
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1 comment:
Is that all perception or is there any data supporting that virgin could not become as successful as it wanted to be ?
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