Telenor in Pakistan Telenor Pakistan is 100% owned by Telenor ASA and adds on to its operations in Asia together with Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh. Telenor acquired the license for providing GSM services in Pakistan in April 2004, and had launched its services commercially. Telenor’s investment in Pakistan is the single largest direct European investment in Pakistan. By the end of July 2008, the total subscribers of Telenor exceeded 18 million, with a market share of 23.73% in 2010. Telenor’s network covers more than 3000 cities, cities, towns towns and highway highways s througho throughout ut Pakista Pakistan. n. Further Furthermor more, e, Telenor Telenor Pakistan has more than 5,000 cell masts throughout Pakistan, making it the 2nd largest network in Pakistan and 3rd in terms of customer base. Telenor has a strategic alliance with Nokia Siemens Networks for expansion in Pakistan. With USD 1 billi billion on alread already y invest invested, ed, Telen Telenor or has exten extended ded agre agreem ement ents s with with its vendors, including Nokia Siemens for network expansion and services until 2009. The agree agreeme ments nts will will resul resultt in USD7 USD750 50 milli million on worth worth of order orders s from from Telen Telenor or Pakistan. The Telenor Group is among the largest mobile operators in the world with over 165 million mobile subscriptions and a workforce of approximately 40,000. Telenor Pakistan is 100% owned by Telenor ASA and adds on to its operations in Asia.
Brands in Pakistan Telenor Group has three major brands in Pakistan: • Telenor Ta Talkshawk (p (prepaid) • Telenor Persona (postpaid) • Djuice ice (m (manag anage ed by by Te Telen lenor Int Inte erna rnatio tional di direct ectly) ly) Telenor Talkshawk is the prepaid mobile connection which is targeted to the gene genera rall popu popula lace ce,, the the gene genera rall mark market et,, of the the Pak Pakista istan n with withou outt much much differentiation in the social class or any geographical segmentation as there are appro approxim ximate ately ly 90 milli million on mobil mobile e users users in Pakis Pakistan tan.. The The smart smartes estt Prepa Prepaid id package to call any network, anytime is the claim of Telenor Talkshawk. Telenor Persona is a postpaid mobile connection which is targeted towards the corporate clients. It is, it can be said, not as much commercialized in terms of advertising as compared to the Talkshawk or the Djuice. Djui Djuice ce is a mobil obile e con connect nectio ion n that that is dire direct ctly ly mana manage ged d by the the Tele Teleno nor r international. It is specifically meant for the youth of Pakistan. Each brand of Telenor has its different services and packages and there are different tariff rates for each of them. Since all the three brands have their own personalities Telenor selects different advertising strategies for each brand. For instance, the ads of the Talkshawk connection are far more in number than Persona and the Djuice. Similarly the ads differ in there content, themes and slogans as well.
Advertising Campaign As said earlier the advertising methodology for each of the Telenor brands in Pakistan would differ. It is, however, clear that the basic advertising objective of the company is to not only attract new customers but also retain the old ones by informing them with the latest packages company launches from time to time. There is a lot of competition in the telecom industry in Pakistan, there are giant players in the market and a minor mistake can result in a huge loss. The availability to the customers of the services like Mobile Number Portability (MNP) which allows them to change their connection provider while keeping the same number has put a serious challenge before the telecommunication firms to be consistent in maintaining their quality. Whatever the steps are taken by the companies like Telenor they have to rely on the advertising to stay relevant and continue to project a good image of their brands.
Advertising Campaign Objectives Here are the advertising campaign objectives for each of the Telenor brands is described:
Advertising objectives for Telenor Talkshawk Talkshawk prepaid connection has been offering four sub packages which are offering a tariff that would make the call rates less costly. In addition there are packages that are related to messaging. The objective of Talkshawk adverts is to stay relevant, retain customers, stay close to the customers, compete with other companies, increase subscribers by offering them best packages and obviously increase the company revenues.
Advertising objectives for Telenor Persona There are less ads being run for Telenor Persona in comparison to the Talkshawk brand. The reason for this is that the main objective is to keep a favorable brand image in the eyes of the corporate clients and there is not too much bombardment of ads. Also the ads are meant to enhance the postpaid users by offering them innovative services like internet, emailing, etc. It also wants to retain the customers since the Jazz Indigo is a quite popular postpaid package among the corporate mobile users. Many of its ads emphasize the importance of business at the smaller levels like in an ad where the local business owners see opportunities being created through better connectivity. The ad is available on the internet. It must also be noted its more business based ads were running previously but not with much frequency now.
Advertising Objective for Djuice Brand Djuice is the only telecom brand in Pakistan that has devoted all of its energy on youth. That’s a mark of distinction for it. It targets youth, and gives them the slogan, ‘its fun to be young.’ As a very large portion of the Pakistani population comprise of youth this brand aims to slowly and steadily become the choice of youth. It has made various ads to target them. Yet one common thing in the
Djuice ads is this currently it is more leaned toward elite youth perhaps because it believes that targeting elite would automatically become a choice of youth from all lower stratum of society.
Advertising Budget--Methods Advertising Budget
Used
to
Determine
The advertising strategy for the Telenor differs for each brand. it is carefully analyzed which media to be used and which method should be used to determine the advertising budget. Also it is planned how much of the percentage of revenue to be spent on the advertising. Normally the companies use Objective and Task Method for determining advertising budget. The two popular approaches to decide budgets are TopDown and the Bottom-Up approach. In the first the management decides how much to spend while in the later the activity based and objective oriented approach is pursued by the managers. After analyzing the advertising campaigns and budgets it comes to the knowledge that the Telenor is using the objective oriented approach where the budget for each brand is decided by the managers depending on the need to advertise while taking into consideration the market realities. Currently it is estimated that Telenor was spending over 400 million Pakistani Rupees annually on advertising. Only in the print media it had allocated approximately 2.2 % of its revenue for the newspapers advertising. However, the companies normally spend 10-14 per cent of their revenues on overall advertising. Thus the figures for overall advertising for Telenor remain to be high since it uses all the popular media to place its ads.
TARGET AUDIENCE By Location The target market is not strictly defined for any of the brands of Telenor specially the Talkshawk. However, it can be said that the Persona and Djuice are meant to be more urban oriented. But as it is said earlier the postpaid Persona is now ready to target the village corporate clients, one should assume that the market segmentation in terms of location is not aggressively devised and pursued by the company.
By Demographic The most important demographic factors that appear in the advertising and targeting strategy of Telenor is that it is using a mix of certain demographic factors in some of its brands. For instance there is no demographic segmentation to sell Talkshawk connection. It is meant to be a smart call package that also gives certain sms packages and is a countrywide choice operating in nearly all over Pakistan including Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the Northern Areas of Pakistan. However, the Djuice differentiates its customers by putting them in the youth age bracket. It is particularly meant to target the youth. And the Persona is
sometimes targeting the social class, the corporate clients. There is no gender related segmentation in any of the packages of Telenor. Message Strategies For each brand and for a number of adverts for these brands there are different message strategies are used. This difference, however, is not much seen in the television and print advertisements. The advertising appeal and the execution style have been changed in many ads by under each brand.
Advertising Appeal for Talkshawk Ads The advertising appeal for much of the Talkshawk ads is Informational as well as Emotional. Some of the ads that were placed at the start of the company operations were necessarily aimed at increasing the awareness about the corporate brand and the services being offered to the customers. then afterwards, after the launching of different brands in the Pakistani market arena the appeals for the advertisements continues to change. Talkshawk, for instance, has used many brand ambassadors to make its informational appeals more attractive and penetrating. Ali Zafar, Amna Haq, Annie are the popular celebrities that are being used as brand ambassadors by the Talkshawk. The advertising appeals largely emphasized the package services, tariffs, special offers yet in a fancy manner. For instance in a recent ad featuring the popular singer Annie who is accompanied by two of her friends discussing about the Talkshawk package while visiting a shop and asking for the Talkshawk features, call rates, local and international, etc. This ad video is available at the BrandSynario web site. In this ad the information is the major appeal. However, one could say from the psychological point of view one could say this ad is also producing an emotional affect by featuring young performers, being happy, purchasing connection, and then Annie getting hooked toward the guy. This emotional appeal rises the hidden feelings of the customers to be more related to this brand. Similarly the other ads of Talkshawk are projecting the same informational and emotional appeals. But this is not much appreciated because it’s a mere following in the footsteps of the competitors. There is also very lack of positivism in emotional appeals of Talkshawk. Rather sometimes Talkshawk as evoke negative emotions out of oneself since they are not creative and not raising the personality of the brand.
Advertising Appeal for Persona Ads The Persona ads too are largely informational, rational and logical. There is also a huge element of emotional appeal in these brand ads as well. The most ads are targeted to the corporate clients of these post paid connection users. For instance in one of the Persona ad a famous TV artist featuring in the ad as a high profile business CEO lands off from his helicopter and moves toward the office headquarters for a meeting with his team while applauding the Telenor Persona as the best connection ensuring best connectivity so essential for the business. Similarly in another ad about the Persona Edge service a famous model featuring as an exploration officer takes the attribute approach to tell the qualities of the
Personal Edge package. She tells in the ad that ‘I Can’t wait, I need instant access.’ while making an analogy of her needs with the Edge features. These types of ads are quite rational as well as lightly emotional aimed at improving the brand image. Such ads normally are creative as well as nicely executed and match the taste of the sensible business oriented clients. All of the Persona ads, it could be said, are well made, have nice themes, and slogans. They are professional in outlook. One of the very best Telenor corporate ad is the one in which there is a flowery trail of communication whose wordings are: ‘ Ashkoun kee lari, Yaadoun kee jhlari, Inn sab ko bhee kaheen Jaana hota hai’
Advertising Appeal for Djuice Ads The Djuice related ads are too much informational as well as emotional. The information is depicted to let the youth customers aware of the tariff and the special services offered by the Djuice. In most of the ads, youth are being the performers. Most of the Djuice ads are energetic, thrilling and youthful. Yet some of the Djuice ads are brand building ad. For instance in a very thrilling ad there are young guys partying and one guy with a girl find hooked in a lift which displays the youth energy raising powerful emotions in the customers. Also in another ad, which was recently running in the television channels an informational appeal is used. This ad, called Djuice Jaagtey Raho, it is simply told the late night call rates. There are also quite unique themes picked up by the Djuice yet these themes too are thrilling and energetic. For instance in an ad a young girl is cooking and meddling with things at kitchen late night while her eyes have been tied up by a clothing piece. The little ad in the end says, ‘save your eyes for djuice.’ The ads for the Djuice as already pointed out are more directed towards the elite audience. Its slogans are even in English like it says, Djuice, one place…its fun to be young. These English slogans, taking urban elite youth themes in the ads suggest that the brand is currently trying to make its image superior while delivering the services as well.
Media Strategy (Electronic Media Only) Media strategy deals with at which channels to place ads on and during which programs so that they will be exposed to maximum target audience. The ads which are good in quality and have the ability to effect the customers can be very beneficial if there reach is enhanced. Telenor in Pakistan seems to be following a very sensible media strategy. It knows at which times it has to place its ads. However, it must be kept in mind that ads of each are not randomly placed. This timing too is determined carefully. Talkshawk, for example, places its ads in popular TV Channels during the highly rated programs. The major channels in which Talkshawk ads appear are Geo, PTV, AAJ TV, Geo Entertainment, ARY Digital, Geo Super, etc. If we analyze these channels are ranging from news, entertainment and sports channels. Geo is a very popular news channel. Most bigger companies want to place their ads just before the 9 o’clock news at the channel because at this time there are heavy viewers switching Geo to watch news. That time was occupied by the
Telenor for a certain period of time. The same is the case with the TV programs. The higher the user rating of a news or entertainment program the more likely would the companies sponsor these programs and put their ads to be placed during the commercial break. For instance, the Capital Talk which is a famous political talk show run on Geo attracts a lot of advertisers. Similarly the dramas being run on ARY Digital often attract the advertisers. During the cricket season most companies put ads on Geo Super and other sports channels like Ten Sports. Telenor Talkshawk is also following the same strategy. Djuice, however, also targets the music channels, or during the programs which are popular among youth and the exposure of youth being more visible at certain times is also a way to place ads for Djuice adverts. Currently Djuice ads are run on all popular channels including the News channels to keep it relevant. It must be obviously clear that a brand like Persona can not place its ads on a cooking channel or a baby channel. Therefore the media strategy for Persona would be to place ads on channels that are more watched by the business oriented people. Currently it is seen that the Persona ads were run on the famous channels like Geo.
CONCLUSION There is no doubt that Telenor in Pakistan has a great potential. It is the second largest market occupier in terms of the subscribers while its revenues are also approximately the second in the industry. Its closest rival currently is Ufone which is making highly precious adverts by utilizing the theme of humor in them. Ufone has also been introducing innovative schemes while with the superb advertising campaign a little changed from the trendy Telenor glamorous, hoopla oriented and too much irritating sometimes. Certain Telenor ads have nothing to offer but a painful music, voices and dances and that too often the same thing is repeated when people get fed up by watching these irksome ads. Yet there are also few good advertisements by the Telenor. But this inconsistency in advertisements quality can put it in a great loss since new technology has arrived which allows the customers to change their connections while sitting at home and facing no havoc of documentation or other official visit. It is recommended Telenor to change its strategy for Talkshawk ads and make them more innovative, appealing and more experimentation with the execution. Similarly the Djuice needs to change the taste and find ways to target greater youth rather than just targeting the elite. Persona ads being fine, most of them, but the package need up gradation in service.
