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Q: What do dogs and Oscar winners have in common? (Or why is the mobile industry in India obsessed with Pug dogs)

Hi there it’s Ewan here. It’s time once again for Surya’s column — if you missed her inaugural one from last week, find it here. I don’t want to draw too much attention to it though, because, as Surya and her friends pointed out on Twitter shortly after I published her post, you must never, ever underestimate the power and influence of the Indian Mother’s Network. Confused? You definitely need to read last week’s post.

This week Surya’s explaining how India’s mobile operators stole the hearts of almost a billion people (and sold them a heck of a lot of phones too), through the rather expert use of the medium of television advertising. Say the words ‘hutch dog’ to almost any Indian and they’re liable to break out into a fond smile. Why? Read on and watch. Over to Surya…

– – – – –

Question: What do dogs and Oscar winners have in common?
Answer: Mobile Telephony. Or to be more specific, advertisements of Mobile Operators in India. And the story goes like this….

Once upon a time, there was a country with one of the most yummy mobile markets in the world, in terms of growth and girth.

The UK? No. USA? No. France? No.

India.

To get the population’s their attention, one of the major mobile operator players decided to enlist the help of the most reliable man in the Indian movie industry (of which Bollywood is just one part of). This man had composed music for a decade for a massive number of movies, and each time the music sold like hotcakes. The operator’s plan? Get the chap to compose a jingle for their adverts that would capture the attention of a whole nation. A big challenge? Not necessarily. Here’s a sample of what he came up with:

As you can see, it’s a simple black and white ad, containing a total of twenty one words. Not one mobile phone anywhere to be seen. It became an instant hit. Even with 100+ TV channels to surf through to avoid even a microsecond of time wasted on advertisements, fingers froze when these ads played on television. The tune was downloaded, set as the defaultringtone, and provided for free by the operator to their new consumers. And then they came up with a second ad, which, this time, actually showed people with mobile phones.

And when there was a bit of an international political fracas with their estranged brother/neighbor nation, they played this ad, again with music from the magic man:

When they changed their parent company’s logo, they went with him again:

So what is a competitor got to do? How do you compete with the national phenomenon of Airtel? Get another musician? Get a movie star? Or go to the dogs?

The last idea actually did not prove to be that bad.

There were some similarities with the first ad of the competitor. Lots of good music, no mobile phones, anywhere on screen. But that’s where the similarities ended. While Airtel went the ‘lets appeal to the higher plane of human emotions‘ way, Hutch decided to be a little more direct. Have a watch of this one…

This advert sparked a nationwide plea from little boys demanding to have their very own ‘Doggie like in the Hutch ad‘. The prices for the particular brand of dog in pet shops shot up. Harried parents went searching for a ‘Hutch dog’ – instead of asking for a Pug; thus adding a popular phrase to the urban collective consciousness of that country. I trust the marketing director got a good bonus.

To maintain interest, they swiftly introduced another ad:

And another:

And thus, they inched their way into the wallets hearts of the urban, apartment dwelling people of India. The Hutch marketing team did such a good job that a bigger, multi-national player bought the company.

During the re-branding, the music used in the ads, changed to more locally flavored tunes, since the focus moved to India’s rural markets. They changed the little boy with a little girl (yay! go girls! ;-D).

The logo changed.

The brand colours changed.

Even the fonts changed.

What did not change was… well, why don’t you take a look?

Of course.

– – – – –

Thoroughly entertaining Surya! I had no idea about the popularity of the ‘hutch dog’! Very smart marketing. I particularly liked the ‘make love, not war’ advert from Airtel!

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