Last week I was searching for the Kingfisher Calendar 2013 for obvious reasons ;-)
Before you get any ideas, I'm a big fan of Atul Kasbekar’s photographs esp. the sunset ones. Check it out yourself at:
My search started at small stationary shops and went on till Crosswords in Pune.
I even went to Kingfisher Goodtimes Mall in Mumbai, but could not find the Calendar.
This got me thinking, Why would someone market a product that is not available easily in the market?
Was the hype(remember NDTV's hunt for Calendar series)really for the product or was there a bigger game at play?
A bit of pondering brought me to the conclusion that:
Kingfisher Calendar was a cover-up for the Kingfisher Beer which cannot be marketed openly in India.
A widely known fact some would say… However this got me thinking about our new Telecom space in India.
Look at the new operators in the market:
Ø Datacom - Videocon
Ø Idea - UnitechAditya Birla Group
Ø Tata-Docomo - Tatas
Ø RIL waiting to invest
Are this companies here only to cash-in for the telecom growth in India, or do they have ulterior motives?
I feel the real motives is much more than of course to make money in the existing telecom market.
It is to have a customer base that can be tapped and maketted at a fraction of a cost than an actual advertising campaign.
Sending promotional SMS to your subscriber base will cost close to nothing.
With the advent of 3G and the exponential growth of data usage in India, I see it as a great business growth strategy.
What do you feel?
Do you agree/ disagree?
Fell free to comment or send me an e-mail.
Better still, let's talk over coffee J
