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Home » Viewpoints » Uninor to Telenor: Rebranding via OOH

Uninor to Telenor: Rebranding via OOH

By M4G Bureau - November 05, 2015

OOH served as the lead media - from conventional large format hoardings to visibility at mass congregation points such as bus stations, railway stations and even puja pandals.


After increasing its stake in the Indian entity to 100 per cent last year, Norway-based telecom services provider Uninor became Telenor as part of the brand's massive re-branding practice. Celebrated as an affordable service provider in India, the re-branding is aimed at the mass audience of the country and also re-establish its affordability plank. A 360 degree brand campaign of Telenor uses the new catchline "ab life full paisa vasool” (Life is now fully cost-effective) than the previous "sabse sasta” (The cheapest). Outdoor Asia caught up with Samir Miglani, Head, Brand & Advertising, Telenor India, who took us through the entire re-branding exercise with special attention to OOH among its media mix and future plans. Edited excerpts.


Tell us about the rebranding exercise of Telenor.

After being present in India for 5 ½ years as Uninor, the brand was re-named as Telenor. This was part of a global strategy to consolidate and have a common identity across all the business units of the Norway headquarted-Telenor group. This move also reinforced Telenor group's long term commitment to India.

The marketing strategy used it as an opportunity to not only change the name but to evolve the brand imagery and be ready to cater to the evolving needs of Indian telecom users. With data emerging as the next big growth driver, the rebranding campaign was aimed to position the brand as a value-based one as well as to cater to wider audience and growing need for mobile data.
 
What advertising formats have been adopted for the same?

An integrated media campaign covering all media was used for a quick impact and reachability. The 6-week campaign was broken up in two phases. Phase One was used to announce the name change and the new positioning, while Phase Two was to give the reasons-to-believe in the new positioning with 3 breakthrough products. National TV was used for building mass awareness while regional TV to do the reach build-up. OOH served as the lead media - from conventional large format hoardings to visibility at mass congregation points such as bus stations, railway stations and even puja pandals. Innovation was done to communicate the transition from Uninor to Telenor. To support OOH along with television, print advertisement was released every week along with radio. An important activity that was done was the unique market storming activity wherein employees engaged with traders and customers, bringing the brand closer to the market.

Which states are you currently looking at right now for outdoor advertising?


We are looking at states like UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh etc.
       
What sort of budgets were allocated for outdoor?

Almost 20 per cent of the total advertising revenue was spent on conventional outdoors and another 10 per cent was spent on ground market engagement for generating buzz.

How important is digital OOH for your campaign?

Digital OOH in India is not cost-effective and does not have fair coverage. Hence, it has limited focus in Telenor's OOH plan. However, we are open to explore this in the future.
      
Most OOH creatives are still copy-paste jobs. Do you think brands should be creating exclusive creative for OOH?

While I am not against having synergy of message across all media, depending on the objective of the campaign, outdoor can be used more effectively by developing creative that uses the media well. During the rebranding campaign, the transition from Uninor to Telenor was brought alive with outdoor innovation, visually demonstrating the 3 alphabet change - uni to tele.

What is your message to the outdoor specialist agencies and media owners?

There should be better measurement techniques, more scientific site selection methodology, grooming creative resources and develop them as OOH specialists.

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