Who ate my pie?

I had all the eye balls, they all seemed to like it.
Infact they enjoy seeing it again,
but they are not buying it .
What’s up….

Idea came up with the new campaign ‘walk when u talk’.
When you see it you say hmm, this is a nice ad.
I as a consumer would want to see it again.
And the ad does resonate in my mind.
But I don’t go out and get an Idea connection, I personally dread it.
Vodafone serves me better. All my friends have it, hence I get to call them for free.
That’s the answer my friend. That’s what we must be looking at..
Even though I paid 150 buck to get 1000mins free ..abt 15 paise Per min.
I still assume I don’t have to pay nothing…
Same goes with what a friend of mine. He wants to get a new Idea connection for his Driver as its just 15 bucks... as for me, you should have guessed it by now,Vodafone..
i got it for my cook because I can call my him for free…

Thus we as marketers as Business leaders, as a manger must realize that its not just eyeballs we need to capture… it is the wallet ( sorry but I am blunt)

Look at Aircel, I till date haven’t come across a single person with an Aircel number.
I have seen their ads in up in the hills where u don’t even dream of getting an signal (totally inhabited mountains 120 kms off Shimla)
Now they had a running campaign but no gain…
Advertises think they can CAMP for A period of time and GAIN….sorry folks.
In the case of Aircel I believe that they must have chosen a different concept.
They were launching their services at a place where they are virtually unknown.
So if their connection can do wonders on the net doesn’t appeal to the mass public…
What they (consumers) wanted to see and what Aircel should have shown is the price points.
· Cost per call
· Cost per sms
· Cost of new connection..
· There service differentiation
Aircel may have the same or even less rates… but nobody got to know that… and no one would spend time trying to know that…

I remember when Idea was launching in Delhi,
they had this tagline – ‘an idea can change your life’, they din use any celeb’s.
As was the norm then… they had a tune and all that but also the buzz, that they’ll provide incoming for free (seems like a century back isn’t it) .
And that was the real rockstar for idea, people used to call it’s helpline no. long before it started operations. Now that’s a case when a customer is climbing the wall to reach out to you, one rarely gets to see that. Even this incumbent of yours tried the helpline but it was always busy but worth a nice tune.
And yes I did switch over to Idea back then from magic (by Airtel) Idea did change my life. I could talk to my girl friend and text her for free all the time.

Now we also had the launch of virgin again no one I know is a virgin(pun intended)
Good ads…. They even had the price points mentioned, very aggressive as well, they paid you for your talkative ways.
But...(yes there’s a but with them as well)
They were not accessible you couldn’t actually find them around.
I may be wrong but here’s one TATA association which din’t work… coz’ many were confused whether TATA INDIACOM had just simple changed their NAME.
In retrospect there is one more problem with both Aircel and Virgin, their target audience…
For a service provider to shift me to itself would require a shift in the world….
College students and working professionals usually don’t get swayed easily.
So one has to make ads that targets the mass. The common man, the person which is a first time user.

For I did have the best ad…but still don’t understand who ate my pie….