Summer Internship Project

A study to analyze the effectiveness of various promotional activities practiced by

Broadband operators

Submitted by :Anirudh BhandegaonkarPGDBA 2nd SemesterRoll No. C – 08 - 09

Submitted to:Mr. T. N. SrivastavaHead, Placement CellGSBA, Greater Noida

TATA COMMUNICATION INTERNET SERVICES LIMITED

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS & ADMINISTRATION

AcknowledgementThis Project would not have come to fruition without the help, wittingly or unwittingly, of a great many people too numerous to mention. This section provides a platform to recognize and acknowledge those fortunate enough to spring to mind.

Our Industry Mentor, Mr. Mayur Agarkar should be commended for the guidance, support, and wealth of ideas he provided in order to see this work completed.

Our Industry Mentors should be commended for the guidance, support, and wealth of ideas they provided in order to see this work completed.

This project was a team effort and we are proud to be a part of such a great team.The credit of the successful completion of the project goes to the diligent teamwork. Thanks a lot to all the unnamed people who kindly responded to the Questionnaire, especially our friends in the college.

Problem Definition

• Promotional activities are broadly classified under ATL and BTL. Due to the inherent difference in their nature, they work differently and outshine one another depending on the industry and the target audience they are directed towards.

• Tata Communications is broadband service provider. To gain a higher market share, they want to promote their products / Services.

• Here lies the problem, what type of promotional activity one should use. Whether one should go with ATL or BTL? Which one has greater effectiveness, ATL or BTL?

Approach to the Problem• We basically had to answer the question that, “if a person had subscribed to a

particular service provider which promotional activity influenced him to do that.”

• to achieve this objective a questionnaire was devised, which explicitly asked these two very important questions from existing internet users.

• The collected data was later analyzed to get effectiveness of various media, which was tested for its significance via Z test.

• Also, to give more meaning to the analysis, the significance of association between customer base and ATL/ BTL activities was calculated through regression analysis.

Effectiveness = no. of people who chose a promotional activity as the crucial deciding factor for subscription

no. of people who got the information about the operator thru that promotional activity

Research Objective

• To analyze the effectiveness of various promotional activities, which are broadly classified as ATL and BTL, carried out by the broadband operators.

Research Hypothesis

• Null Hypothesis, H0 : “There is no significant difference

between ATL and BTL activities”.

• So, an alternative hypothesis would be,H1 : “There is significant difference between

ATL and BTL activities”.

Research design

• The target population was broadband users in Delhi/ NCR.

• A target sample size of 250 was decided with 50 sample elements per member.

• Quota sampling technique was used: population was divided into regions, the sample elements were selected based on convenience or judgment.

• Snowball sampling and ‘Online sampling’ was also used but to a lesser extent.

Cont..

• only primary data could have served the purpose, which was collected via questionnaire.

• The field work: It comprised of targeting people at random at malls,

commercial places, markets etc.We took help of our friends in getting the questionnaires

filled. They also referred us to their contacts, creating a snowball effect.

Mailing an online questionnaire to every known e-mail also helped in data collection.

• After 30 days of fieldwork, we had a sample size of 248 respondents

Data Analysis

• Once we got the data, the next step was to analyze it.

• SPSS tools such as frequency, crosstabs and MS XL tools such as bar, pie & scatter charts were used to analyze the data.

• Effectiveness of ATL and BTL was calculated by grouping the no. of response for ‘deciding factor’ and ‘source of info’ for both ATL & BTL and then dividing to get the efficiency.

Results and Findings

A) Demographics of the sample

Age of respondents•The results show that 94% of the respondents were in the age group of 18- 32 years. This is significant as it’s likely to bias the findings drawn from the questionnaire and also on the conclusion of our hypothesis.Reasons:We were able to approach only those who were either our friends or the friends of our friends. Even mall interception wasn’t a cure as they are frequented by people of the above age group.

Fortunately the maximum demand also comes from the age group 18-32 either for work or entertainment purpose. So this skewness is somewhat compensated.

61%

34%

5% 0%

18-2425-3233-40above 40

  Frequency Percent Valid PercentCumulative

Percent  18-24

151 60.9 60.9 60.925-32 84 33.9 33.9 94.833-40 12 4.8 4.8 99.6above 40 1 0.4 0.4 100Total

248 100 100

Respondents’ Gender• this result is also very significant as the

gender balance of a population immensely affects the practices of marketers.

• 77% of the sample is constituted by male and it’s sure to bias our findings and conclusion.

• This biasness may be accounted to the fact that our research team was primarily comprised of males and there is high probability that a man will have more male friends. Since we used convenience sampling, the gender balance got inclined toward males.

• Also girls may not prefer to disclose some personal information and therefore they declined to be a part of research.

5722.98%

19177.02%

femalemale

Gender

Regions to which respondents belong

Region

rest of ncrnoidacentral dehiwest delhi+gurgaon

east delhisouth delhinorth delhi

no. o

f res

pond

ents

100

80

60

40

20

0 1.68%

15.55%

6.30%10.50%

38.24%

15.55%12.18%

Region

Observations• The research field (Delhi/

NCR) was subdivided into seven regions according to the anticipated density of respondents in those regions.

• More that 50% of the respondents were from East Delhi and Noida Primarily due to convenience sampling.

Average monthly family income

• maximum no. of users fall in the income category 30- 45 K, a typical middle class income group.

• This result will significantly impact our findings as with the change in income group of a person, his preference for a particular promotion tool/ activity changes.Avg. monthly Family Income (in Rs.)

above 6000045001-6000030001-4500015000-30000

no

. of

resp

on

den

ts

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

8.06%

30.24%

40.73%

20.97%

General findings from the Research Questionnaire

Average monthly bill of the respondents

Average monthly bill (in Rs.) Total

below 500 501-1000 1001-1500 1501-2000 above 2000 below 500Avg. monthly Family Income (in Rs.)

15000-30000 15 30 5 0 2 52

30001-45000 21 56 20 4 0 101

45001-60000 8 47 19 0 1 75

above 60000 2 15 2 1 0 20

Total 46 148 46 5 3 248

• Almost 60% of the users say that their ranges from Rs. 500- 1000

Suggestion:• focus on this price range (500-

1000). Tata should come up with great and value for money offers. Decent downloading speed and good connectivity can go a long way to attract huge no. of customers.

• Tata can go for pitching the higher plans i.e. 1000- 1500, to the income category 45- 60 K as they buy this plan in significant no. relative to their sample size.Average monthly bill (in Rs.)

above 20001501-20001001-1500501-1000below 500

no

. o

f re

sp

on

de

nts

150

100

50

0

1.21%2.02%

18.55%

59.68%

18.55%

Internet service provider of the users

• The results show that Airtel rules the Broadband market with almost 40% share.

• Tata is a distant third with 11% share.

Suggestion:• If tata has to increase its

customer base it has to study the market leader’s behavior, adopt the good things and learn from their mistakes.

Internet service providerothersRelianceMTNLSifyAirtelTATA

no. o

f res

pond

ents

100

80

60

40

20

0

2.82%7

10.48%26

25.40%63

10.89%27

39.11%97

11.29%28

Purpose of the getting an internet connection (multiple selections allowed)

• Surprisingly, 2nd reason is not entertainment or surfing but ‘educational’. Who says that internet diverts the focus from studies!

Suggestions• Focus on the educational aspect of

internet and how an internet connection can make your work so easier and your life stress-free.

• Target Schools & Colleges. Here they can smoothly sell the educational aspect of internet.

• target professional institutes and offices to exploit the ‘makes your work easy’ aspect of internet.

work requirement

educational

entertainment

net surfing

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

141

135

102

105

Purpose of Internet

no of respondents

Source of information about the broadband connection (multiple selections allowed)

• friends /family suggestion is the largest source of information about any brand. Interestingly, its free of cost!

• The next best source is TV ads ( 44 %) and if one trusts this result one may be prompt to conclude that one should go with TV ads.

• The graph certainly doesn’t give a good picture of effectiveness per se.

TV Ads

Print A

ds

Internet

Ads

Hoardings

& banners

Tele

caller

s

campaig

ns/ Can

opiesmail

dealer

/agen

t

frien

d/family

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

109

57

2340 48

65 6658

162

no. o

f re

spon

dent

s

The most crucial factor that influenced the decision of the respondent to go with the respective broadband operator

• Friends’ suggestion still maintained its lead with 29.6% but TV ads lost. So TV may be a source of info but not influential enough when it comes to decision.

• Campaigns/ canopies were the crucial factor in 18% of the cases, incidentally, grater than all of the 1st four activities (ATL) combined.

Most crucial factor

other reasons

III(b) friend

III(a) dealer

II(c) mailII(b) campaign

II(a) teleI(d) hording

I(c) intrnetI(b) printI(a) tv

no

. o

f res

po

nd

en

ts

80

60

40

20

0

3.70%

29.63%

7.41%

12.76%

18.11%

11.52%

4.53%

1.23%2.47%

8.64%

Frequency Percent Valid PercentCumulative

Percent

Valid I(a) TV

21 8.5 8.6 8.6

I(b) print 6 2.4 2.5 11.1 I(c) internet 3 1.2 1.2 12.3 I(d) hording 11 4.4 4.5 16.9

II(a) tele

28 11.3 11.5 28.4

II(b) campaign 44 17.7 18.1 46.5 II(c) mail 31 12.5 12.8 59.3 III(a) dealer 18 7.3 7.4 66.7 III(b) friend 72 29.0 29.6 96.3 other reasons 9 3.6 3.7 100.0 Total 243 98.0 100.0 Missing incorrect response 5 2.0 Total 248 100.0

Features of promotion, which are liked by people the most. (Multiple selections allowed)

Suggestions• Clarity is on factor which is

bigger than all the other three combined.

• Therefore while making a promotional campaign, it should be ensured that it conveys the message clearly more than any thing else.

• Those media should be chosen which best do this job. e.g. tele-calling etc.

simplicityClarity

CreativityExhaustive publicity

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

85

129

64

12

no. o

f peo

ple

simplicity 85 34.3%

Clarity 129 52%

Creativity 64 25.8%

Exhaustive publicity 12 4.8%

Feature no. of respondents %age

Brand recall/ awareness of different brands

• Airtel is indisputable leader when it comes to brand awareness. First recall frequency of 176 tells a lot about the level of promotion Airtel must have done.

• Tata and reliance have low 1st recall which goes up significantly in 2nd and 3rd recall.

• A good sign, that if they do just a little bit more effort they can reverse the trend, which Airtel is doing currently. 1 2 3

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2236

64

176

40

18

4

34 20

32

5859

5

4682

9

34

5

othersRelianceMTNLSifyAirtelTATA

rank ( according to order of recall )

%ag

e of

resp

onde

nts

Cumulative brand recall score and ranking

• Airtel has the highest brand recall rank.

• It means if a person thinks of broadband , he thinks of Airtel.

• Brand recall is an intermediate step b/w promotions and final purchase. Brand Promotions Brand Recall

subscription or purchase.

• Therefore a degree of association should exist between all these three factors. TATA Airtel Sify MTNL Reliance others

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

202

626

100

271189

100

Brand recall ranking

Cum

ulati

ve sc

ore

1

2

3 4

5 6

brand recall ranking

Key:1sr recall A score of 32nd recall a score of 23rd recall a score of 1Cumulative score was calculated by adding score of each rank to give brand recall ranking.

1st recall (3 marks) Score

2nd recall (2 marks) score

3rd recall

(1 mark)cumulative

score rankTATA 22 66 36 72 64 202 3

Airtel 176 528 40 80 18 626 1Sify 4 12 34 68 20 100 5MTNL 32 96 58 116 59 271 2Reliance 5 15 46 92 82 189 4others 9 27 34 68 5 100 6Total 248

Analysis of effectiveness and

hypothesis testing

Analyzing the effectiveness of various promotional methods

TV Ads

Print Ads

Internet Ads

Hoardings & banners

Tele callers

campaigns/ Canopies

mail

dealer/agent

friend/family

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

109

57

23

40

48

65

66

58

162

21

6

3

11

28

44

31

18

72

effectiveness of various media in absolute termsmost crucial factor source of info

no. of respondents

TV Ads

Print Ads

Internet Ads

Hoardings & banners

Tele callers

campaigns/ Canopies

mail

dealer/agent

friend/family

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

19.26

10.52

13.04

27.5

58.33

67.69

46.96

31.03

44.44

effectiveness (in %)

ATL

BTL

word of mouth

Observations:•The above charts show that campaigns/ canopies are the most effective media by far. This is certainly a much unexpected result, when in absolute no. the ‘recommendation’ factor was leading in a big way.•The two most effective forms of promotions are interestingly those which are human interfaced. •Online advertising didn’t give the expected results. Probably because when a person doesn’t have internet, he cannot access the online ads (except in a café).

A different interpretationEffectiveness = ROI

These results can be expressed in a different light if we assume –that expenditure per person is same for all the media. i.e. same amount of money is spent to give information to a person either through TV or through tele-calling etc.In this sense, ‘source of info’ represents expenditureAnd, ‘most crucial factor’ represents revenue generated.Hence effectiveness represents Return On Investment (ROI)So, ROIcampaigns is maximum. And, ROIprint is minimum. So if a company is short on resources, then the promotional tools that come under BTL should be used as they offer high ROI, which the company needs. Even when money is not a constraint, it’s the financial logic that says invest more in BTL.Word of mouth has an infinite ROI, since there is no expenditure, only returns.ROIword of mouth = infiniteSame is the case with Dealer /agent. Although you have to pay some commission or give discounts to him. But still, it’s worth the deal.

Analyzing the effectiveness of ATL and BTL activities for different service providers

tata Airtel sify MTNL Reliance others0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

8

16

39

4 1

22

69

20

47

17

5

deciding factor: ATLsource of info : ATL

no. o

f res

pond

ents

tata Airtel sify MTNL Reliance others0

10

20

30

40

50

60

12

35

10

31

12

3

18

55

17

34

18

3

deciding factor: BTLsource of info : BTL

no. o

f res

pond

ents

tata Airtel sify MTNL Reliance0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

36.4

23.215

19.123.5

66.6 63.658.8

91.2

66.6

effectiveness (in %)ATL

BTL

Observation:With respected no. of respondents, only Airtel and MTNL’s efficiencies are worth drawing any analysis.MTNL scores a whopping 91% efficiency (or ROI) in BTL but only 19% for ATL.Airtel has a good BTL’s ROI and average ATL’s ROI.Statistically Tata and reliance have better ATL as well as BTL’s efficiency. Only statistically!

Analyzing the effectiveness of ATL and BTL activities ‘in toto’

ATL BTL Word of mouth0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200 180

145

192

41

10390

22.77

71.03

46.87

source of info most crucial factor effectiveness (in %)

no. o

f res

pond

ents

Observations:•The pyramids clearly show that BTL the most effective mode of promotion (71%), more effective than ATL + word of mouth.•Inherent to its nature, reach of BTL is lesser than ATL as well as word of mouth, because BTL is very personalized which restricts large scale spawning of the information but its impact on the consumers’ mind is huge which is evident in the effectiveness peak.

•Word of mouth is a boon to those who can use it to their stride. It has big source of information i.e. broad reach and has high effectiveness (47%). And it’s absolutely free.

But it’s still early to give a final verdict on the effectiveness of any form or category of promotion until and unless you test the significance of that statistical result because results which hold good for a sample may not hold good for the population.

Hypothesis testing

• H0: there is no significant difference between the effectiveness of ATL and BTL activities.

• Since effectiveness is a ratio, we will apply the Z test ( for proportions)

• On Applying the Z test ( annexture 2)• We get , Zcalculated > Ztabulated H0 is rejected.

Research Conclusion:

• Null hypothesis should be rejected and substituted with an alternative hypothesis which says,

“ BTL promotional activities are more effective than ATL promotional activities.”

Recommendations or Suggestions:

• In this time of recession the finding of the report are a ray of hope for the companies.BTL can help you cut down your cost and boost your sales as well.

• Since BTL is effective than ATL so TATA should reconsider its marketing strategy with higher advertising dollars going for BTL (preferably in the proportion of their respective effectiveness).

• Tata should take campaigns/ canopies in a big way. Tata is not a rookie in this field. The success of “Jaago Re” campaign for tata tea is a proof of their expertise. They have to emulate that success in the broadband arena.

• Setting up of canopies at commercial places, residential colonies, apartments will certainly show great results.

Cont…• Tata communications should use the available database of other

business units of Tata Group (tata tele-services in particular) to exploit the brand loyalty of Tata which they might have and communicate with them through phone or/and mail (e-mail), both highly effective media, and give information about our products.

• Tele-callers are an asset to tata, they should invest more here to equip them with required soft-skills and product knowledge so that they have higher convincing abilities. This increases their effectiveness and Tata customer base.

• To harness the immense power of ‘recommendation’, Tata communications has to become a customer centric company (CCC). The present customer base is an asset which will rope in more customers if they are cared through prompt after sale services.

Cont..• The price range of 500-1000 Rs is the key to bigger market share.

Bringing in new ‘value for money’ packages in this range and marketing them well can do the trick.

• We can’t afford to neglect the importance of ATL activities, they may not be as effective but give information to a larger population creating a brand awareness. As we have already seen, brand awareness has a significant association with customer base.

• Print media presented a very poor show and Tata communications should reconsider its plans of pouring in any significant amount of money in this media. Rather, that money should wisely be used to set-up more number of Hoardings and banners.

Limitations:

• A very huge no. of people made their final decision based on “friends/family suggestion”. This tells a major limitations of the research that we cannot access from where the ‘recommenders’ got the information.

• we can say ‘what’ is effective but cannot say ‘why’ it’s effective. That probably needs another research.

• In calculating the ROI, basic assumption that the cost of promotion per person for all media is same may not be true, due to which the results generated will be gross.

• Sample size is also a major limitation since research of this sort require a large sample size. This limitation became evident when, effectiveness of ATL/BTL activities of tata and reliance came out to be higher than Airtel due very small no. of respondents.

Appendices

• Questionnaire

Thank You!