The Hindu Business Line : When you got it, flaunt it!

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When you got it, flaunt it!

Ramanujam Sridhar

Motorola seems to have got its act right in India, after a sluggish start.

The market is booming. The customer is evolving. Is being wooed.

Motorola's use of ABHISHEK BACHCHAN is an example of good usage of a celebrity in commercials.

Every fortnight we go through a ritual in our company where a fresh recruit comes for an induction or a welcome meeting with me. Whether it is a young man or woman who walks into my room, he or she follows a familiar routine.

For convenience I am just going to say man. The young man shakes hands with me and, in what is a natural gesture for him (but a profound one for me), removes his cell phone and places it prominently on my table. I almost forget my welcoming lines, so sleek and modern is the trainee's mobile phone. And I can assure you that it makes my phone look a bit like me (at least when it comes to fashion) — a bit dated at least if not jaded.

Even as he looks surreptitiously (if not disparagingly) at my phone I wonder if we are overpaying the trainee and he doubtless must be wondering if I am underpaid! But without getting side tracked and without having to be a genius, one can clearly say that a mobile phone is an eminently `flaunt able' accessory.

I am sure none of today's kids have heard of this line for Braniff airlines which read: `When you got it, flaunt it.' But that seems to be the guiding philosophy not only of management trainees in my company but also of youth in this country and the world over.

And which mobile phone is more eminently flauntable than Motorola's `Moto Razr'. A design that is so breathtakingly striking that as Motorola's Chief Marketing Officer, Geoffrey Frost,says it has a "whoa" factor which incidentally is the new "wow" factor. And this superior product design has probably been behind Motorola's turnaround strategy.

Sluggish Indian start

Motorola initially got its India act wrong. It probably committed the mistake that several MNCs had done earlier — treating our vast nation as just another country. And don't we know we are different! And now that we have a voice and some new found success, we actually keep reminding ourselves and the rest of the world about our unique nature.

And in the usage of mobile phones we are probably more than a bit different! We specialise in giving `missed calls' so that the other person ends up paying for the call. And we speak quite extensively on the mobile phone unlike some of our global counterparts. Motorola strategically erred in shipping products to India that were probably struggling elsewhere.

India is a social country. The mobile number seems to be the most easily traded commodity in our country. We seem to know scores of people — just look at our weddings where hundreds of guests throng and exchange each other's mobile numbers with great ease. And the earlier Motorola phones created for Western customers with their limited address book capability were found wanting. Also the traditionally heavy Indian users had issues with the battery and the uncertain power situation in India made charging the battery too a challenge. More critically the advertising for Motorola left us Indians cold. We are a lively lot. We don't appreciate too much sophistry. We like celebrities. We like music. We like pretty women. We want emotion. Motorola lost the initial advertising battles for the Indian consumer's mind.

Hello India!

But India was rising in more ways than one. Ring tunes of all types, volumes and genres were flooding the market. Indian youth was taking to the mobile phone as a duck to water. Today mobiles are big business and the country is on track to surpass Russia and the US in total subscribers. It was now or never for Motorola which internationally was being threatened by that company from Finland - Nokia.

Motorola focused on India. Launched high profile products in India, not the hand-me-downs of other countries. Not only were the products loaded with features like camera, MMS, downloads etc, but were wonderfully styled. The new Moto range had funky four letter names - RAZR, ROKR, PEBL, SLVR. These were distinctive and gave the consumer a handle, though the young consumer in this category seems to have a tremendous propensity to remember, recall and ask for model numbers. And not to forget the advertising! Motorola did what a few brands like Coke have realised earlier. You must talk to the Indian consumer in her language. You must customise. You must involve. Motorola did this and more.

Yo guru!

Indian advertisers love celebrities. They know they will give them instant awareness. They know that audiences love and recognise celebrities and watch those ads with great interest. Mind you, sometimes we confuse our viewers by letting celebrities do too many commercials for diverse brands. At other times we dish out such lousy scripts that even actors with reasonable histrionic ability just land up as endorsers for the appearance money. Motorola used Abhishek who is no laggard in the looks race. I am sure lots of young Indians would consider him extremely good looking. But here's the twist. He is good looking all right but the tongue-in-cheek script has the last laugh. It has Abhishek posing quite elegantly and a trace arrogantly. The commercial ends with the shocked actor seeing the newspapers the following day which are full of pictures of the phone. So much for good looks!

Then there is another commercial where Abhishek saunters into a bar and sees a stunningly beautiful girl. In his arrogant manner he texts: "Your place or mine?" Imagine his consternation when the girl coos: "What a lovely phone!" Again the product is the celebrity despite the presence of a high profile celebrity who is just selling the product. A wonderful usage of a celebrity. I wish other celebrity commercials were as charming.

Price it right

India is a price conscious market. More so the youth. (And how considerate of them to worry about the price, given the fact that their parents are paying!) But Motorola's pricing strategy has been certainly aggressive. Not only are the products wonderfully styled but the pricing is irresistible. Of course, there are ways and ways of communicating an attractive price. But I wonder if there is a more attractive way of communicating this price than Motorola's recent advertising that has been widely telecast.

The script is worth repeating even given my limited ability to describe scripts - particularly brilliant ones. The script is in a typically middle class household. The kid (and here I speak loosely - I meant young man) is having his tea but his parents are piling on to him. "He was late from work again." "Is he doing something he should not be doing?" "Your mom found this phone in your pocket." Yes, a Motorola flip phone looks deceptively expensive and people can be misled.

Really striking advertising, which now has a sequel in an office situation where some accounts are stubbornly refusing to be tallied. A lot of money is not traceable. And suspiciously our young hero has a brand new expensive looking Moto Razr! Fantastic looking, wonderfully priced and smartly advertised products. Obviously they are creating more than a ripple in the market place.

The future evolves

Yes, the market is booming. The customer is evolving. Is being wooed. Nokia which was the leader by far is being challenged. And like cricket supporters who want Australia to be challenged and support any team that beats them, the Indian consumer too would love to have a choice. And yet Nokia has a lot of things going for it. The brand has tremendous equity and a loyal consumer base, many of whose first mobile phones has been a Nokia. They are familiar with the functioning of the phone. They have dropped this phone many times, (which seems a special Indian habit), and the phone still works. They have a range of models too. They have tremendous distribution. And Nokia too, along with other brands, is wooing the young Indian who seems to have a propensity to change phones as frequently as some people might change shirts! Yes it is not only the mobile companies but also the Indian consumer who is loving it.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO of Brand-comm.)

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