Advertising & Sales Promotion Management

Submitted to:
Mr.Anurag Hans Submitted by:
Swagitika ray

Introduction
The mobile phone market in India is worth 130 million handsets annually. While the big players
likeNokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson make up for 70% share, the market has of
late seena slew of domestic firms such as Micromax, Karbonn and Intex making large inroads
and newestablished brands like Videocon and Onida entering the field.
Micromax, started operations in 1991 as an embedded software design firm, but was
incorporated as acompany in 1998, when it branched out as a distributor of computer peripherals
such as printers,monitors, scanners from manufacturers such as LG, Sony Inc., Dell Corp.

To day, Micromaxi s one of the leading Indian Telecom Companies with 23 domestic offices
across the country and international offices in Hong Kong, USA, Dubai and now in Nepal. With
a futuristic vision and an exhaustive R&D at its helm, Micromax has successfully generated
innovative technologies that have revolutionized the telecom consumer space.

Micromax is on a mission to successfully overcome the technological barriers and constantly

engender “life enhancing solutions”.

The company’s vision is to develop path-breaking technologies and efficient processes that
incubate newer markets, enliven customer aspirations and continue to make Micromax a trusted
market leader amongst people. The Micromax ideology stems from its rooted belief in
‘Innovation’ and delivering “nothing short of the best”

Micromax has a lot of interesting and thoughtful products to its credit on their versatile product
portfolio. It was the first to introduce in the market,

 Handsets with 30 days battery backup

 Handsets with Dual SIM / Dual Standby
 Handsets Switching Networks (GSM - CDMA) using gravity sensors
 Aspirational Qwerty Keypad Handsets
 Operator Branded 3G Handsets
 OMH CDMA Handsets, etc. .

One of the major aspects that contribute towards the substantial monthly growth of Micromax is
its 80% sales in the rural areas. After building a strong presence in the rural market, where the
prominence of both subscribers and operators is rapidly increasing, Micromax’ is now
progressively moving towards establishing its foothold in the competitive urban towns as well.
The news further elaborates that Citigroup Global Markets Inc. has confirmed Jain’s assertion in
a 3February.2010 report, which said Micromax had a 10% market share, putting it at No. 3
behind Nokia andSamsung, which had 12-13%.

IMC tools used by MICROMAX

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 :

Events and experiences

For marketing of its products the company is riding on two enduring Indian obsessions--sports
and films--to 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 behaviour is termed in advertising, is to
drive brand awareness and recall. The company believe that while cricket may boost a brand
instantly, viewers may still not remember the brand after the match or the tournament. Even if
consumers remember a series, they may not remember the advertisers. That's 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. Bollywood's 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 Micromax's
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.

Primesite 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

Lowe Lintas

Lowe Lintas is one of the India’s largest and most storied communication groups. Its founded in 1939 as
a part 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 provide all the service to its clients like market
research,production,designing,selecting and purchasing media.

Today, Lowe Lintas India is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Interpublic Group, and one of the star
offices in the Lowe Worldwide network. Headquartered out of London, Lowe Worldwide has over 80
offices in 73 countries and a client roster that includes Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, Ericsson,
Sharp, Saab and many more.

Lowe Lintas India leads global and regional communication for several Unilever and Johnson’s Baby
brands.

Consumers
Micromax has divided its target audience into three categories - the rural sector, the urban youth (18 to
27 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.

One of the major aspects that contribute towards the substantial monthly growth of Micromax is
its 80% sales in the rural areas. 

 After building a strong presence in the rural market, where the prominence of both subscribers
and operators is rapidly increasing, Micromax’ is now progressively moving towards
establishing its foothold in the competitive urban towns as well.

It was in 2008 that Micromax ventured into the mobile handset market. The brand wanted to
create a base before taking on the large players . Hence as a go-to- market strategy, Micromax
concentrated on the rural market first. It was a different move altogether since most of the
marketers tend to concentrate on the urban markets then move to the rural markets.

Micromax launched its first phone in the rural market with a very unique USP- 30 days battery
standby time. The brand was launched from a consumer insight that most of the rural households
do not get enough electricity to recharge phones on a daily basis . Hence a phone with a 30 day
battery standby would be a worthwhile differentiation. The first product was a big success. The
first product Micromax X1i priced at Rs 2150 was lapped up by rural market.

The success of X1i enthused the company to go aggressively into the market. But tapping the
rural market is not an easy task. There is severe logistics pressure in servicing these markets. One
of the first things that Micromax did was to establish the distribution network . According to a
report in Forbes India ( March 5,2010), Micromax created a distribution network comprising of
34 super distributors, 450 distributors and around 55,000 retailers. The brand could also take
advantage of the inroads made by other brands into advantage

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

Familiarility : 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.

Likeabilty : many of the youth in india resemble themselves with akshay ,hence there are great
chances that if he endorse this brand,it will become more popular among youth.

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.

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.

Advertising Objectives and Advertising Budget

When micromax was launched in 2008 the main objective of the advertisements was to create
awareness about the brand as it was a new entrant in the market and very established brands like nokia,
samsung, sony erricson were present. so, the initial objective of the advertisement campaign was to
catch the attention of the customers and to create awareness about the brand. This phase of creating
brand awareness was carried out for 12 – 18 months from the launch of the phone.

After that the company realized that awareness was created among the customers but they were not
able to recall their brand ,hence they shift their focus to brand recall. for this they have sponsored a lot
of cricket events and film events.

Now since they have attained 10% market share and reach at the 3 rd place in mobile handset
manufacturers they must focus on creating brand value. for this they have sign up with Akshay kumar as
their brand ambassador.

In short the advertisement objectives of micromax are

 To create awareness
 To increase recall of their brand
 To create brand equity.

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 crore for ATL (above the line) advertising, of which print will take the maximum share,
followed by TV and radio. Another Rs 40 crore 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 Macromax 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 Facebook ad was outright disgusting. Most of the campaigns
like Gravity, MTV , EEZPad was 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.

In a big marketing move, Micromax roped in the Bollywood Action hero Akshay Kumar as the brand
ambassador. This move is going to boost the brand recall of Micromax to new heights. Akshay Kumar
has strong equity both in urban and rural markets. The association with such a big star will also have a
positive impact on the image of Micromax. The brand can now overcome the perception of a low price
product.

But the first campaign featuring Akshay Kumar was nothing but pure noise. The new Gamolution
handset was supposed to be a game changer for Micromax. But the campaign was a big let down.
With a star like Akshay, the brand could have done much much more rather than some funny noises
and acrobatics. I think the agency was stuck in a stereotype as to how to use Akshay Kumar.

The new game handset uses the motion- sensor technology with bluetooth ( as I understand). So
one can play games using the computer and handset. I don't think that the ads were in anyway
doing justice to the brand's intention. Motion Sensor games are not new to the Indian markets but
playing games on a PC using mobile is something new. I am not sure whether the ad essentially
communicated the innovation.

A very poorly made ad like this will do more harm to the image of Micromax. The brand may get lot of
eyeballs due to the ' noise ' and celebrity power, but a low quality ad will reflect in the image perception
ofMicromax.

There is a risk of the brand perceived not as an aspirational brand but a ordinary price warrior if it does
not focus on the quality of the communication.

Micromax now have a wonderful chance of moving up the ladder. With a good product range,
reasonable pricing base and a high profile celebrity, the brand could have positioned itself as an
aspirational brand.

Conclusion and finding

 Micromax is a very innovative company as it launch 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 awreness level.
 Its advertisement campaign were 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.
 They have planed to spent a huge amount of rs 100 crore on advertisement and promotions.

Recommendations
 Now they have achieved a good market share ,so now their advertisement should
focus on brand building.
 They don`t develop very creative advertisements,sometimes their advertisements are
mere noises like the advertisement featuring akshay kumar.they must add creativity
to their advertisements.
 The tag line is very confusing,a new tag line which can be understood easily must be
incoperated.
 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 Facebook ad .hence quality of the
advertisement must be improved.
 There is a risk of the brand perceived not as an aspirational brand but a ordinary price warrior if
it does not focus on the quality of the communication
 Micromax would do well if it could bring in some class in their campaigns.
 Micromax as a brand should be developed focusing on the core brand values like innovation and
value orientation.
 When the product range widens, it may not be practical to sustain individual campaigns. So it is
time for Micromax to position the Family Brand and develop a brand identity

SALES PROMOTION
Marketing communication activities, other than advertising, personal selling, and public relations, in
which a short-term incentive motivates a purchase.

Sales promotion include tools for consumer promotion, trade promotion and business and sales force
promotion.

Sales promotion is one of the four aspects of promotional mix. (The other three parts of the
promotional mix are advertising, personal selling, and publicity/public relations.) Media and non-media
marketing communication are employed for a pre-determined, limited time to increase consumer
demand, stimulate market demand or improve product availability.

Trade sales promotion techniques

 Trade allowances: short term incentive offered to induce a retailer to stock up on a product.
 Dealer loader: An incentive given to induce a retailer to purchase and display a product.
 Trade contest: A contest to reward retailers that sell the most product.
 Point-of-purchase displays: Extra sales tools given to retailers to boost sales.
 Training programs: dealer employees are trained in selling the product.
 Push money: also known as "spiffs". An extra commission paid to retail employees to push
products.

Trade discounts (also called functional discounts): These are payments to distribution channel
members for performing some function