Part-1
Telecom and my 1st Goa Visit.
Maharashtra is India’s largest market for any product, whether its consumer goods or FMCG or liquor industry. The openness and business-friendly ecosystem have encouraged entrepreneurs to come and establish factories and start a business. I am fortunate that I had to work in this market with different companies and that too with new MNCs those were trying to establish their roots in Maharashtra.
The benefits of working with big companies are that you don’t need to struggle for budgets if you have a good robust Go to Market plan which expedites the approval process. MTS was such a company where I worked 2 years during its launching when telecom was not in so good phase. I am talking about 2009-2011 when India has seen so many new telecom service companies such as Uninor, MTS, Videocon, Etisalat and many more apart from established brands like Airtel, Reliance, and Vodafone.
It was the time of an experiment, telecom outlets were the point of discussion, topics were so common, like – which is better- CDMA or GSM.
Managers were easily found in stores explaining, educating and convincing retailers that why CDMA is good in quality. Why my data plan is better than his data and my scheme is better than his scheme.
Android was in baby steps, and the internet was limited to yahoo and Orkut, Facebook was expanding its wings every day. All cyber cafes were seen full of youngsters, either busy in scrapping on the blue screen of Orkut or swapping with so many chat windows of yahoo messengers.
I still remember, in the winter of 2009 when I was traveling from Solapur to Pune in Hutatma express I met sales head of Uninor Mr.- Kamlesh Bharthwal, and he told me that we can check the emails on the mobile phone too.
He was very inspiring and I still have high regards for him.
I was shocked, surprised and felt the wave of internet revolution which was paused to capture the coming generation. How can someone check the emails on mobile, I mean now there is no need to go to cyber café to check emails, Isn’t it amazing!
I reached Pune and bought a new phone – Samsung Corby, my 1st smartphone and my obsession start with a smartphone.
Phone with a camera was like a gift for a photographer, before that I had burned a big part of my salary in buying a DSLR – Nikon 3000, which cost Rs 24,000 at that time. I love the camera and photography is my passion and I always wanted a good camera. I bought this DSLR from a store at Parihar Chowk, Aundh.
But after buying Corby, I felt like having magic in my hands. I used to take photographs whenever I see something new. In Jan 2010 I was going to Goa to manage the launch of MTS and it was my 1st flight too. I took many photos of air hostesses serving sandwiches and water. I still feel embarrassed whenever I think of this act, but please understand these are the new things for me. Airplane, air hostess, a new phone with a camera how can I resist myself for not clicking the photos. In 4-5 days of my Goa stay, I took so many photos using my phone, I tried to captured goa from my small lenses.
My DSLR was also with me, but I was gotten rid of handling a big camera everywhere. It was full of the thrill of capturing anyone without letting him or her know. I will write a full story on my 1st flight in some other post.
Note: – My 1st flight was kingfisher and I was going to launch a telecom company MTS in goa, and surprisingly today both- kingfisher, and MTS are disappeared from Indian business eco-system.
Those were the days when I was learning the ABC of marketing and with the grace of destiny, opportunities and challenges were ready to teach me.
You must be thinking, I started this piece of writing on marketing communication but reached goa somehow rather describing the principles of marketing communication and relating my experiences.
Guys, Integrated marketing communication is a part of marketing, a larger view of marketing communication. MarCom is a strategy, a set of tactics and tools of communication through a business or a company try to establish communication with its end users, trade partners, and other stakeholders. This is intending to acquire more customers or explaining the new features and schemes and further motivate to upgrade and upselling.
When we use integrated with marketing communication, then we thought to usages of all possible tools of marketing communication, such as POSM describing new features or plan, billboards, Radio, Roadshow, customer engagement activities, participation in Exhibition and local festivals, etc.
IMC is an integral part of GTM strategy, of a product or brand launch, where each vertical has a role to play for a particular launch project. Including sales and distribution, service, finances and commercial, product and brand.
Now again let’s come to goa, my journey to goa in my early days of MTS was worthless, and after reaching there I got to know that distribution was not ready to launch. Network team was also not ready with CDMA coverage across Goa, and data card functions limited to Panjim city only. After 2 days, I was told to return Pune and hence my wish to become a SPOC for all launch planning and execution was not fulfilled.
After a month, when all necessary ingredients were fulfilled then finally MTS was launched in Goa.
Here is the 1st learning of IMC –
1) keep real-time communication with all verticals
2) SPOC should have the voice in decision making
3) Go ahead is required from all verticals before fix a launch date
4) necessary planning for engaging trade and customers’ needs time and effort, therefore be patient and get the best services and channels on board.
5) for Marketing Managers – don’t be over-enthusiast, be rational and ask questions.
6)for Marketing Managers – don’t be over-enthusiast, be rational and ask questions.
This is the 1st part of the series on Integrated Marketing Communication. I welcome of all your suggestions to create more value in its 2nd part.
Thanks.