ONIDA – AS A BRAND & NEW PRODUCT : MOBILE PHONES

Marketing Strategy - A Case Study

Onida took over Indian electronics world in Nineties purely with their advertising genius and the catchy caption "Neighbour's envy, Owner Pride”

‘Neighbour’s Envy, Owner’s Pride’ campaign ran for more than two decades consecutively, making it one of the most talked-about in Indian advertising history.

• In 1998, Onida withdrew the mascot The explanation given in 1998 was that Indian consumers no longer find Devil, who symbolizes Envy, relevant.

• But ever since it changed the tagline and mascot, Onida never found a powerful positioning .

• After six years of drifting around, Onida brought back the Devil with much fanfare in 2004.

• But the comeback was damp squib. The brand suffered heavily due to ownership issues within the company.

• There was no brand promotion or new product launches worth talking about since 2004. If at all there were launches, promotions were not sufficient enough.

Onida is facing a marketing problem and not a branding problem. Everything is fine with the brand. People recognize the brand, love its mascot. The issue is on a larger perspective. It needs to concentrate on its entire marketing mix not just the brand elements. Changing the devil and bringing in a new mascot is not going to do any good to Onida.

Onida is changing its brand elements because of competition from Korean brands like LG and Samsung. These Korean majors has built its position in Indian market riding on Product strategy rather than on heavy duty brand promotions. Their products were good, reasonably priced and well promoted. In the case of LG and Samsung, nobody really cares about the tagline. Their Image of a multinational company in the minds of consumer helped them to grab market share instantly. It gave a perception that these companies have better technology.

Onida failed because its products failed. Everyone loved Onida KY Thunder Television. But after that there was nothing remarkable about Onida. No high technology products came from this brand.

Onida became successful because the Devil was backed by products that really created envy in others. Now there is nothing to envy about Onida.

Brand Onida : Introspection

Onida Mobiles : Call your other side

Onida’s entry into mobile phones a year and a half ago had been a low-key affair

This silence was strategic in a sense. In a market that is getting crowded by the day, and is dominated by brands such as Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, HTC, Blackberry, etc, Mirc Electronics (The Brand Owner of India) needed to find its feet. “There was no way the newbie could have taken on the big boys back then. It had to get its act together on many fronts – product, price, manufacturing.” Sriram VP Sales & Marketing says the company has been focusing on these very attributes.

Nokia, the world’s largest handset maker, has taken offence at Onida’s new ad that targets the Finnish company heads on. ‘Dimaag Nahi Hai Tabhi To No Kiya’, goes the punch line playing upon Nokia and ‘No Kiya’, in the spot designed by McCann-Erickson.

Dimaag Nahi Hai Tabhi To No Kiya

The controversy has indirectly done what the company expected the ad to do — create awareness that the company had got into mobile phones

Onida has launched 25 models since its soft launch in the middle of 2008

The price point goes from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000 where the bulk of the market is.

The basic models are covered and so are slightly higher-level devices or “feature-rich models” that are not heavy on the pocket. So young, working executives, even college-going youth, can purchase these products. That’s the target group that Mirc is focusing on.

With teledensity in rural areas at about 16 per cent as against urban areas which is over 90 to 95 per cent, the thrust of most players is on the rural market. The sub-Rs-3,000 range in particular is where much of the action is concentrated as far as rural markets go.

There is a large replacement market as well, which makes it exciting for players to be

Mirc is playing up its features aggressively – dual sim, extended battery life, voice modulation, Indian calender etc – to draw consumers to its fold. It is this aggression that led to the audacious ‘Dimaag Nahi Hai Tabhi Toh No Kiya’

Ondia Mobile - Marketing Strategy

Nowadays every one is trying to sell their product by using controversies. These types of advertisement create hype and generate good sales for the short period of time and if consumer finds that your product is worth then it makes huge impact for future sales.

In this case even though Onida's advertisement had been dropped then also I feel that purpose of the advertisement is solved and now it is up to quality of product to decide future sales.

Better positioning: Onida should stick with a uniform positioning strategy rather than changing it with time as they did. Celebrity Endorsement: The Company should go for a better adverting. The company can rope in a celebrity to endorse its brand. This way the brand can be benefited from celebrities brand equity. Regain Visibility: The Company has lost its place in the minds of customers. Also, the loyal customers of Onida have grown older. To regain old customers and to regain visibility, Association with events can help. Line Extension: The Company should go for line extension in value segment so as to target more customers These products will target the young and first time buyers. These buyers will have an emotional attachment with the brand and as they graduate to the high end segment, Onida can target them with its high end products.

What Onida Should do?

India adding over 10 million users every month, there is a burgeoning demand for low-end to mid-level mobiles.

Cumulative sales of handsets per-year pegged at over 100 million in India,

Domestic handset companies like Onida, Videocon and Maxx Mobile have been upping ad spends to catch eyeballs in the world’s fastest-growing telecom market.

India is also Nokia’s biggest manufacturing facility. It had a cumulative production volume of 250 million units as of April 2009.

Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson also manufacture mobiles in India.

The handset market was pegged at 110 million units at 2009-end.

More money to be spent on R&D and less money on brand building - huge investment needed in product development. The models in this segment has a shorter product lifecycle and Indian consumers are now learning the habit of changing mobiles every year

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Mobiles Handsets : The Indian Market

Onida is restructuring its core organizational processes to strengthen the link between consumer insights and product design.

This ethos is exemplified by their new tagline Tumko Dekha Toh Yeh Design Aaya

The objective is to embed every Onida product with aesthetic design and thoughtfulness which will appeal to the new generation.