Marketing II

6M Analysis of the Ad Campaign

Section C

Group-6

Ashish Kalya 2012PGP069

Krit Doshi 2012PGP174

Pradeep Kumar Mishra 2012FPM012

Preethi S 2012PGP274

Sumanth J 2012PGP381

Tushar Gupta 2012PGP410

The Campaign Chosen:

Volkswagen Speaking Ad Campaign:

On 21 September 2010, Volkswagen launched a newspaper campaign. This was done to promote Volkswagen Vento which was launched one month before the campaign. [1]Volkswagen teamed up with DDB Mudra Group to customise and communicate their latest offering.[6] The newspapers (Times of India Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Delhi Edition and The Hindu Chennai Edition) which carried this Ad were circulated only in Big Metropolitan Cities. 2.5 million Speaking microchips were put in Newspapers. The microchip was light sensitive and started announcing the pre-recorded Audio Clip which spoke about Volkswagen Vento. This was a onetime campaign used by the German AutoMaker to mark its presence in the Indian Automobile Industry.

Analysis using 6M framework

Market:

The communication was addressed to the newsreaders of the big cities. Only TOI and The Hindu (English Dailies) were chosen as partners for this promotion which tells us that Volkswagen was targeting sophisticated city readers who were well-educated.

Rajiv Sabnis, president – DDB India, said, “It is one of the most discussed and blogged topics and the most searched subject amongst the online community. So it wasn’t just the ad that did the talking but got its readers talking about it too!” .[3]

The Ad looked at attracting the tech-savvy readers.

Mission:

To create Brand Awareness and to enter into new segments in the coming years. [2]

Mass Marketing, even low conversion to sales would mean recovering the cost of the campaign

To generate a Buzz which would extend beyond the conventional print media space as this is expected to create lot of online and offline conversations

Message:

To convey that Volkswagen was an innovator whether it is their car or their promotions Vento, the best of German Engineering was in town Volkswagen as a big power house which was capable of spending huge amounts of

money on R&D The passion which was put into the design and development of the car

Media:

English Dailies, The Times of India (Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Pune Edition) and the Hindu ( Chennai Edition ), were used to carry out the print promotion. The last page of the supplement contained the small black box (2.5 inches x 1.5 inches)[1] which played the recorded audio clipping of the message.

A lot of buzz was created in the online communities as most of the online media channels contained the innovative strategy used by Volkswagen. This was created without any spending.

Money:Each of the device cost around Rs 5 and was manufactured in the Volkswagen China facility.[2][4]

The other costs incurred by the company were the Ad cost for the full page ad on ToI and other ancillary costs. The total cost per paper was Rs 40. [4]

The Company incurred a total of around Rs 6 Crores and targeted to reach the 25 Lakh subscribers in the five cities.

Measurement:

There was a 200% increase in dealer enquiries. Most importantly, in one day, with one incredible execution they hit 12% of Vento’s

annual sales target.

There was a 100% spike in Google searches for VW Vento. [5]

There was a 10-fold jump in the sales of Volkswagen cars in 2010 ( 32627 compared to

3039 in 2009). [7]

During the 12-month period, the company sold 27,946 units of the Polo and the Vento [7]

References

[1] OneIndia, 21 September 2010, http://news.oneindia.in/2010/09/21/newspaper-speak-to-readers-on-volkswagen-vento.html[2] Economic Times, 22 September 2010, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-09-22/news/27575760_1_print-advertisement-marketing-advertising-campaign[3] Campaign India, 23 September 2010,http://www.campaignindia.in/Article/233091,a-talking-newspaper-ad-launches-volkswagen-vento.aspx[4] Money Control, 21 September 2010,http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/volkswagen-spends-rs-6crtalking-newspaper-sources_486017.html[5] The Newspaper Works, July 2011 http://www.thenewspaperworks.com.au/news/india-vw-talking-newspaper[6] Business Standard, 21 September 2010,http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/ddb-india-helps-launch-volkswagen-ventoyet-another-path-breaking-initiative/408721/[7] Economic Times, 3 Jan 2011,http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-01-03/news/28426032_1_volkswagen-sales-volkswagen-group-sales-india-carmaker-volkswagen