Insight
82 Million Households in India are still media dark. Mobile with an absolute penetration of 72% provides the best solution for last mile reach.
The India growth story has been making headlines in international and national media over the past few years. It is no secret that the surge is attributed to the rural belt of the country. However, it is the infrastructure that poses the greatest challenge. Traditional media only reaches 20% of the rural population. Imagine owning the best LCD television but not being able to watch anything because there is no electricity for 10 hours a day. Low literacy levels add to the challenge.
The challenge was clearly to reach to the rural audience in Bihar for Hindustan Unilever in order to start creating SOV for its mass & rural focussed brands. The challenge was augmented more due to the above stated insight of low traditional media penetration on which HUL always relied to push their products.
Strategy
PHD realised that the only thing that serves as a means of entertainment for this audience is their mobile phone. Which they use to listen to songs and watch movie clips. While TV reach was 23 million, mobile reach is more than double that, at 54 million. Also mobile operated on battery recharge of 6-8 hours which obviated their need of electricity to consume the content.
Movies and movie stars influence everything from the way people get their hair cut to what they wear to the dialogues they use in everyday conversation. In fact their phone’s memory card is filled with movie content and songs that are downloaded from services offered by telephone operators.
Another interesting nuance of this audience is their value consciousness. The practice of preserving talk time is unique to this audience and market.
That is where the idea of KKT (Kaan Khajura Teshan) was born.
KKT is an always on mobile entertainment radio channel in which the content is interspersed with HUL communication. Give a missed call to the number dedicated to the KKT hotline and receive a call back which would give the user access to entertainment stream. PHD used consumer insight to create a win-win situation for both. PHD piloted the channel in Bihar, the heart of the rural belt and the intent is to continue to grow and spread as long as there are people who live in the rural areas. The callers got access to free entertainment and HUL was able to break out of the vicious SOV battle.
Execution
KKT (Kaan Khajura Teshan) literally translates to ‘ear worm radio channel’. A name that spells out the intent with which it was created. PHD came up with sticky, highly memorable branding identity, creating a catchy jingle, an appealing mnemonic and a very easy to remember number – 1800 3000 0123!
The promotional message makes the process of connecting with the channel crystal clear; “Missed Call Lagaao, Muft Manoranjan Pao” translating to “Give Us a Missed Call and Get Free Entertainment!”
“Outbound Dialers promoted the activity”
The consumers are educated about the activity through targeted Out Bound Calls. All one has to do is give a missed call to a toll free number and they would then immediately receive a call back from ‘Kaan Khajoora Teshan’ with per-programmed content that consisted of Popular Music, Hindustan Unilever Ad spots, Jokes and an RJ to host the show.
“Made it personal through Radio Jockey delivering Content”
The RJ also reminds subscribers to give a missed call again when/if he/she wishes to listen to more songs. Each subscriber is allowed to receive a total of 60 mins of radio content, per month. (Broken into four capsules of 15 mins each).
“Latest Movie Content at the forefront”
To make sure that KKT continues to gain traction, HUL ties up with the latest movie releases for the year, ensuring the audience has access to the latest content.
“Local & regional content”
As the pilot market is Bihar, PHD also ensured that there was enough regional content from the local movie industry (Bhojpuri).
Results
Single largest media channel in Bihar - in just five months of the idea coming alive, PHD got more than what it had set out to - over 6.2 million subscribers in one region alone.
The project eventually aims to reach 20 million households (equated to 20 million unique mobile numbers) and thus 100 million users in India’s media dark hinterlands. The consumer base is growing at an average of 25,000 per day.
The content has proven to be a hit with a Total Usage of 65 million minutes to date.
430,000 wkly avg listenership
Av. consumption/month – 24 mins
50% consumers listen to > 10 mins
50% Repeat call backs the next week
The campaign has also delivered over 40 million brand impressions to date.