When the cellular network Idea was launched, believe it or not, it used a Sumo Wrestler as its brand ambassador! I guess they were desperate to break clutter and differentiate from the well entrenched brands. But there was no relevance. A couple of years later, they came out with a jingle ’98 la la la….’ which was catchy but again made no impact. Idea was yet another me-too brand trying to fight for mindspace in the cluttered environment.
But when Aditya Birla Group took over the reins of Idea, their strategic intent led to a quantum jump. One major difficulty, which even the Vodafone marketing head admitted in a conference I attended a few months back, is that the TG for any cellular network is right from a vegetable vendor to a CEO. How does one create an ad which is SEC independent and effectively appeals to all strata of the society?
Idea came up with the big ‘Idea’. Make the brand communicate a socially relevant message which is relevant to a cellular network. With the help of the brand ambassador, Jr AB, they came up with a commercial where a priest/father of a convent school used cell phones to teach children who could not travel to school. Brilliant! They then followed up with politicians using SMS-based polls to take policy decisions. Outstanding! Here was a brand that created communication which appealed to one and all and the relevance was bang on. Also, this is a glaring example, where a brand is much above the brand ambassador. Even if Idea has to part ways with Jr AB, it would only have minimal impact. While, I am a little disappointed with their latest ‘walk-n-talk’ campaign, I still give Idea full marks for its sound strategy to drastically change the way a brand is perceived. What an Idea, Sir ji!
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