Submitted To: Ms.

Deepti Srivastava

Submitted By: Nimish Gupta PG20102217

ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION FOR MICROMAX

7/28/2011

ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION FOR MICROMAX

INTRODUCTION
Micromax is a challenger brand in the highly competitive mobile handset market. This Indian firm is shaking up the market dominated by MNCs. Micromax was founded in 1991 by Rajesh Agarwal. Micromax in its original avatar was a distributor of computer hardwares. In 1998, three more people Sumit Arora, Rahul Sharma and Vikas Jain joined Micromax as co-founders. The company branched out from a mere distributor to a marketer of telecommunication equipments. It was in 2008 that Micromax ventured into the mobile handset market. Advertising is the one of the biggest tool to development of integrated marketing communication. So the Micromax uses IMC tools to promote the product and build the strong image of the brand in the consumers mind. Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is the practice of unifying all marketing communication tools so the send a consist, persuasive massage promoting company goals. With a 360 degree advertising and marketing strategy sketched out, the company has an optimistic outlook for the telecom consumer space. Currently present in more than 40,000 stores across the country, the company plans to have an aggressive market incursion to reach out to its customers through 70,000 operational stores in the coming year The following tools of IMC are being used by Micromax:

EVENT AND EXPERIENCES

For marketing of its products the company is riding on two enduring Indian obsessionssports and filmsto build its brand. Following up on its association with the popular Twenty20 cricket Indian Premier League (IPL), Micromax, a brand that is less than three years old, has become the title sponsor of almost all tournaments and series of which India is a part, including the recently concluded Asia Cup, the forthcoming India-Sri Lanka Test series and the India-New Zealand-Sri Lanka tri-series in August. The objective behind the cricket roadblock, as such behavior is termed in advertising, is to drive brand awareness and recall. The company believes that while cricket may boost a brand instantly, viewers may still not remember the brand after the match or the tournament. Even if

I I L M, Gurgaon

ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION FOR MICROMAX

consumers remember a series, they may not remember the advertisers. Thats when they thought of a roadblock and decided to sponsor all cricketing properties post IPL. Bollywood is also a major platform for the brand, which is targeting consumers between 18 and 27 years. Bollywoods most bankable star Akshay Kumar was signed on as the brand ambassador six months ago. More recently, his wife Twinkle Khanna was engaged to promote Micromaxs bling phone that comes with Swarovski crystals and a vanity mirror. To push its association with films, the firm also sponsored the IIFA (International Indian Film Academy) Awards held in Sri Lanka, where Micromax recently launched its phones. The brand is now ready to enter Bangladesh and West Asia.

ADVERTISING
Broadcast media micromax use television to broadcast their advertisements.  Apart from using cricket, films, celebrity micromax also advertise through news papers.  They also utilize hoarding and bill boards to advertise their products.  Prime site recently kicked off a month-long campaign for Micromax mobile phones in Delhi, executed mostly through hoardings. Going further, this promotion will be extended to the other regions of northern India as well. On the brief and objective of the campaign. The city of launch was Delhi to start with, and post which we did the launch in Patna and Jaipur. Indore is next in line. There are more cities where the campaign will be launched in the near future for which we would be briefed accordingly. All the Medias used by micromax are very carefully selected as to reach its target audience and through each medium the innovative aspect of the product is portrayed

ADVERTISING AGENCY
Agency: - Lowe Lintas
Lowe Lintas is one of the Indias largest and most storied communication groups. Its founded in 1939 as apart of Hindustan Lever headed by Chairman and Chief Creative Officer R. Balakrishnan (Balki) and CEO Charles Cadell, Lowe Lintas employs over 650 people across eight divisions and nine cities all over India. Lowe Lintas is a full service agency, it provides all the service to its clients like market research,

I I L M, Gurgaon

ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION FOR MICROMAX

production, designing, selecting and purchasing media. Today, Lowe Lintas India is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Interpublic Group, and one of the staroffices in the Lowe Worldwide network. Headquartered out of London, Lowe Worldwide has over 80offices in 73 countries and a client roster that includes Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, Ericsson, Sharp, TATA, Saab and many more. Lowe Lintas India leads global and regional communication for several Unilever and Johnsons Baby brands.

CONSUMERS
Micromax has divided its target audience into three categories - the rural sector, the urban youth(18 to27 years) and the high profile users. Micromax is solely targeting the rural segment right now - and why not? After all, it promises the maximum number of consumers and all they demand from a handset is regular features at an affordable price. The youth segment is the second most important segment, whom the brand will appease with innovative features such as a memory card with more capacity, better music and camera quality and a trendy face value. For the third segment or the premium class 'technological innovation' will be the catchword.

SOURCE, MESSAGE AND CHANNEL FACTORS

SOURCE
Celebrity: micromax has used Akshay kumar and very recently his wife twinkle khanna to endorse their brand. these celebrities are used as brand ambassador because of the following reasons Familiarity: Akshay Kumar is a very famous celebrity in Indian villages as well as urban areas. so he is very familiar to the target audience i.e. the youth. So it was a good decision to get him to endorse this brand. Likeability: many of the youth in India resemble themselves with akshay; hence there are great chances that if he endorses this brand, it will become more popular among youth

I I L M, Gurgaon

ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION FOR MICROMAX

MESSAGE
Through all the medias microamax is conveying a very clear message that we are best in manufacturing phones which have innovative features which makes yours life simpler and at a very affordable price CHANNEL FACTORS The different channels that micromax is using for advertisement are : Broadcast: It is using television as well as radio to reach the target audience. it use personal channel as all of its advertisement is focused to the youth. Print media: It is creating a lot of noise by using news papers, in these advertisements it also focuses on innovation of their product. SupportMedia: Micromax uses also support media to reach their target customers. Clutter: since it a industry where a lot of competition exists .every company is using all these Medias too, hence a lot of advertisements are aired by different companies, which creates a lot of disturbance

ADVERTISEMENT BUDGET
Micromax, is all set to shell out a whopping Rs 100 crore for its brand building initiative. It is targeting a wide base of new and existing subscribers, using a 360 degree media approach via multiple platforms. It has allotted Rs 60 crores for ATL (above the line) advertising, of which print will take the maximum share, followed by TV and radio. Another Rs 40 crores will go into the BTL (below-the-line) initiatives.

CREATIVE ASPECTS
The company is very innovative and creative as it develop new products with innovative features. Most of the brand promotion for Micromax is centered around products. We havn't seen a corporate brand building campaign from Micromax. The ads are for individual products highlighting the product feature. Micromax has the tagline Nothing Like anything "which initially appeared confusing.Perhaps the brand wants to convey that every product from Micromax has something unique. It is not just like any other product. The brand's promotions, although heavy, is a big let down. Some of the campaigns are good but most are below par. For example, the Micromax Face book ad was outright disgusting. Most of

I I L M, Gurgaon

ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION FOR MICROMAX

the campaigns like Gravity, MTV, and EEZPad were very ordinary basic ads. There was no brand building theme behind those ads. They talked about the product and that is it. I feel a visible lack of creativity behind those ads.

CONCLUSION
     Micromax is a very innovative company as it launches mobile phones with very unique

and innovative features. It has utilized events and experience as part of their communication strategy to enhance

the recall rate and awareness level. Its advertisement campaign was oriented to the rural market than the urban. It take a right decision to sign Akshay kumar to endorse their brand as this will help them

to create brand equity. It does not make very creative advertisements; they simply narrate the features of the phone.

REFERENCES
www.suchetadalal.com

http://www.watblog.com/2010/09/20/bharti-takes-on-nokia-micromax-enters-low-end-handsetbusiness/ www.micromax.com

I I L M, Gurgaon