Smartphones have captured the imagination of India. According to IDC, it was one of the fastest growing market witnessing a 14% increase in shipments to 124 million units in 2017 alone.
The opportunity has obviously meant an intense competition in this space.
We have seen that within a few years companies like Xiaomi, Vivo & Oppo have been able to build a strong connect with the Indian consumer. Samsung has been the only veteran in this list.
What can we know about these brands? What kind of connect have they built? How can we know answers to these questions.
After thinking about this problem, I realised that TV commercial ads & Youtube videos have patterns and stories about what these brands are trying to do.
So lets take a look
1) Xiaomi -
Mi A1 (this is the android One based OS, which doesnt have Mi OS)
Sober, Dad son relationship, cool colours
Brand Ambassador: Katrina Kaif
selfies, energetic bright colours
Very Indian Stories (girl waking up, going to office)
Sophisticated, Urban Indian Girl but taking selfie of nearly everything
Xiaomi even though the phones were exactly what they had sold in China, gave it an "Indian" feel.
2) Samsung (Disclaimer: I worked for Samsung & these views are purely personal)
Themes:
- No Brand Ambassador
- Sophisticated, slick foreign shoots
- Lack of Indian themes
J7 Pro -
Full of energy, Message of breaking barriers, achievement, But no Indian?! Atleast the ad didnt feel Indian at all! And the ad didnt have any story but just a way to promote the wireless payment feature
S10- Same ad which is played in US with bank offers appended right at the end. Again, no Indian theme, very western feel
Again, no Indian touch, probably to appeal to the aspirational qualities of the millenials.
Vivo -
Brand Ambassador: Aamir Khan, Ranveer Singh
V9 23k
If you look at Vivo over the years you will see a very clear pattern. They started out as a young, energetic brand but later moved to more sober themes.
The ads were Ranveer Singh were about Indian millenials travelling, living in the moment. With Amir khan it was about capturing moments, sober themes and quiter ads (even though they played heavily during IPL). We used to believe it was because they had started targeting a different audience, not millenials but slightly older, professional target segment for their top of line phone range. Again, Indian characters, somewhat believable themes but nothing OTT like Samsung
Across all brands apart from maybe Samsung, as companies realised that Indians were most concerned about camera and nothing else like performance, the ad pitches also moved towards it
It felt that Xiaomi, Vivo & Oppo tried to get rid of their Chinese tag and become more Indian. While, Samsung a veteran in Indian market, without the China tag tried to be an global brand thus focussing lesser on Indian qualities.
In a country like India, very few brand have survived without becoming "Indian". What do you guys think?
Interestingly, Samsung's consumer goods business had launched this ad which won several accolades and became viral in India at a point:
