Industry Scenario:

India has
870+ million mobile phone users in India building an overall mobile tele
density of 70.96%.
Whats interesting is only 330 million read a newspaper every day, only 159
million tune into radio and 112 million Indians take that couch ahead facing T
V Sets.
Needless to say mobile wins hands down against every media vehicle of mas
s reach. Around 90% of mobile phone connections in India are prepaid and,
despite the relative inexpensiveness of calls, it isnt all that uncommon for
people to tell each other, Give me a missed call.
Today India has one of the fastest growing mobile internet adoption rate, how
ever its still not as fast as foreign markets. With a total base of approx 870
million mobile connections. Only 147 million are
connected to internet over mobile. This leaves approx 723 million mobile dev
ices which can only be
reached through the traditional approach of mobile phones i.e. Voice, SMS an
d THEMSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data). Thats how
Indian mobile market differs from global ones.
Theres money in the business, which is why Twitter recently acquired Indian
company ZipDial. It is also why Facebook forged a partnership with
VivaConnect, a rival of ZipDial, in November last year.
Missed call marketing is exactly what it sounds like: consumers call back in
response to ads targeted at them, but hang up without connecting.
Companies then call them back or send messages with deals, coupons and
offers.
More than that, the companies gain valuable information of customer
interests, preferences and profiles so that ads can be more precisely
targeted.
How does it work?
And will companies theme it?
To answer the second question first, they already do.
For instance, in 2013, when consumer goods company Hindustan Unilever
Ltd (HUL) looked at ways to increase engagement with its consumers in Bihar
and Jharkhandit believed the two markets were relatively underserved by
mediait decided to theme missed call marketing. The company set up its
own mobile radio channel, Kan Khajura Tesan (earworm station) along with
a campaign to build awareness. Consumers could give a missed call to a
number and, in return, receive 20 minutes of free, on-demand content,
ranging from Bollywood songs to popular Hindi entertainment. The campaign
seems to have struck a chord with the users and has, to date, racked up calls

from around 30 million people, nearly 200 million ad impressions (the

number of times callers hear the companys ad), and the consumption of
around 500 million minutes of content.
State Bank of India and GlaxoSmithKline have also themed missed call
marketing, which has gained currency in recent years. Many marketers see it
as an easy and cost-effective means for brands to reach out to a larger
target audience, particularly in semi-urban and rural markets where Internet
penetration is still low.
VivaConnect is India's largest Voice & Missed call company providing
Creative Marketing solutions over MOBILE. They manage a daily traffic of 30
million outbound calls through their pool of over 1200 PRI's to meet the ever
changing & diverse customer needs.
They have clients from every walk of life. To begin with consumer brands the
y handle engagement campaigns for leading brands like Hindustan Unilever,
Colgate Palmolive, ITC limited, Cadburys India, Johnson and Johnson, etc.
Then there
are BFSI enterprises as Central Bank of India, Vijaya Bank, Saraswat Bank, Sh
aeKhan, ICICI bank, Kotak, Reliance, etc. Among television channels they hav
e Doordarshan, Sony Television and ZEE Entertainment Limited.
They
have even initiated services for leading Political Parties during 2014s pre
election campaigning.
Talking of revenue, Voice based services hold a substantial contribution follo
wed by Mobile Apps and SMS. Among segments, the following is the revenue
share: