With this in mind, the idea was born to launch a mobile brand that revolved only around young people.
“We entered a very concentrated market,” he says. “There were already eight to 10 very large telecoms players. These players are not only successful, but extremely big. We knew it was not going to be easy so we entered the market with a very different business model.”
That business model has meant focusing on a single demographic: the youth market. “No-one had concentrated on this huge population of young people, which has the highest mobile usage. This segment talks twice as much as other people, SMSs around three times as much and is also the first to try out any kind of VAS.”
A marketing and strategy professional, Narasimhan has over 18 years’ industry experience, beginning his career with ITC India. After ITC, he joined Unilever where he held various roles including consumer insights, brand management, corporate strategy, competitive intelligence and marketing across several categories. He is also a voracious reader, a sketch artist and has played the flute professionally.
When building the Virgin marketing team, Narasimhan set out to hire talent with similarly eclectic backgrounds. “I wanted a team with multiple interests, who have had multiple experiences,” he explains.
Furthermore, to help him communicate Virgin Mobile to Indian youth, he has focused on developing a team that is “younger, has a certain insolence, chattiness and strong vocabulary”.
To be relevant to its target audience, the brand has wisely deployed internet and outdoor media. “Rather than deploying a carpet bombing strategy, the idea is to be where the youth is, like college campuses, movie halls and common hangout spots,” he says.
Virgin plans to invite students to be brand ambassadors and request them to sell branded merchandise such as T-shirts. “We want to create more conversations,” says Narasimhan. “We don’t want to preach to them - we want to bring them into the kitchen.”
In terms of payment schemes, it did not take much time for Virgin Mobile to unearth the insight that the young love to talk for hours on their phones, but have limited money to spend on this. Hence the idea of paying for every 60 seconds of incoming call that they receive on their Virgin phones.
“The response to this scheme has been overwhelming already,” says Narasimhan. “The mobile company becomes your banker. The more calls you make the more credit you get. We also offer unlimited music downloads for free for a year and list over a million songs.”
So what is next? Over the next few months, Virgin Mobile plans to roll out GSM services across the country in most of the telecom circles where it can operate and spectrum is available. All offerings will encapsulate the benefits of ‘network for friends’, leveraging the fun quotient of the Virgin Mobile brand on the mobile platform.
The company is already claiming a number of ‘firsts’ for its GSM mobile services offerings. One of these, branded as vBelong, allows mobile users to design and create their own WAP sites for their group, college or community to showcase their talents by uploading images, music, events, forums and blogging.
To promote the new services, Virgin Mobile has roped in Bollywood stars ‘Jodi’ Ranbir Kapoor and Genelia D’souza, who featured together in the movie Chance Pe Dance.
“In these two, we have an extremely good fit for our brand,” says Narasimhan. “Not only in what we are, but also what we want to be in GSM - which is the ultimate network for friends to be on. Kapoor is one of the desired guys today, and similarly, D’Souza is known as a fun-loving girl next door. Both of them are popular and affluent, with recognised faces.”
Asked whether Virgin Mobile has future plans to target a demographic other than young people, Narasimhan laughs.
“There are 550 million young people in India. There are enough of them to keep us busy for a very long time.”
2004 President, marketing, TVS Motor Company
2002 Marketing manager, Hindustan Lever
1990 Area sales manager, ITC Limited
Got a view?
Email [email protected]
This article was originally published in the 8 April 2010 issue of Media.
“We entered a very concentrated market,” he says. “There were already eight to 10 very large telecoms players. These players are not only successful, but extremely big. We knew it was not going to be easy so we entered the market with a very different business model.”
That business model has meant focusing on a single demographic: the youth market. “No-one had concentrated on this huge population of young people, which has the highest mobile usage. This segment talks twice as much as other people, SMSs around three times as much and is also the first to try out any kind of VAS.”
A marketing and strategy professional, Narasimhan has over 18 years’ industry experience, beginning his career with ITC India. After ITC, he joined Unilever where he held various roles including consumer insights, brand management, corporate strategy, competitive intelligence and marketing across several categories. He is also a voracious reader, a sketch artist and has played the flute professionally.
When building the Virgin marketing team, Narasimhan set out to hire talent with similarly eclectic backgrounds. “I wanted a team with multiple interests, who have had multiple experiences,” he explains.
Furthermore, to help him communicate Virgin Mobile to Indian youth, he has focused on developing a team that is “younger, has a certain insolence, chattiness and strong vocabulary”.
To be relevant to its target audience, the brand has wisely deployed internet and outdoor media. “Rather than deploying a carpet bombing strategy, the idea is to be where the youth is, like college campuses, movie halls and common hangout spots,” he says.
Virgin plans to invite students to be brand ambassadors and request them to sell branded merchandise such as T-shirts. “We want to create more conversations,” says Narasimhan. “We don’t want to preach to them - we want to bring them into the kitchen.”
In terms of payment schemes, it did not take much time for Virgin Mobile to unearth the insight that the young love to talk for hours on their phones, but have limited money to spend on this. Hence the idea of paying for every 60 seconds of incoming call that they receive on their Virgin phones.
“The response to this scheme has been overwhelming already,” says Narasimhan. “The mobile company becomes your banker. The more calls you make the more credit you get. We also offer unlimited music downloads for free for a year and list over a million songs.”
So what is next? Over the next few months, Virgin Mobile plans to roll out GSM services across the country in most of the telecom circles where it can operate and spectrum is available. All offerings will encapsulate the benefits of ‘network for friends’, leveraging the fun quotient of the Virgin Mobile brand on the mobile platform.
The company is already claiming a number of ‘firsts’ for its GSM mobile services offerings. One of these, branded as vBelong, allows mobile users to design and create their own WAP sites for their group, college or community to showcase their talents by uploading images, music, events, forums and blogging.
To promote the new services, Virgin Mobile has roped in Bollywood stars ‘Jodi’ Ranbir Kapoor and Genelia D’souza, who featured together in the movie Chance Pe Dance.
“In these two, we have an extremely good fit for our brand,” says Narasimhan. “Not only in what we are, but also what we want to be in GSM - which is the ultimate network for friends to be on. Kapoor is one of the desired guys today, and similarly, D’Souza is known as a fun-loving girl next door. Both of them are popular and affluent, with recognised faces.”
Asked whether Virgin Mobile has future plans to target a demographic other than young people, Narasimhan laughs.
“There are 550 million young people in India. There are enough of them to keep us busy for a very long time.”
Prasad Narasimhan CV
2007 Chief marketing officer, Virgin Mobile India2004 President, marketing, TVS Motor Company
2002 Marketing manager, Hindustan Lever
1990 Area sales manager, ITC Limited
Got a view?
Email [email protected]
This article was originally published in the 8 April 2010 issue of Media.
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