Brand Recall

A brand is said to have recall if it comes to consumers’ minds when its product class is mentioned.

It indicates stronger brand position in the mind. Still at a higher level is the top of the mind recall; it is the brand, which comes first to the mind. The top of mind awareness indicates a relative superiority a brand enjoys above others. Sometimes a brand becomes so dominant that it becomes the only recalled brand in the product category.

Keeping this theme in mind we asked the consumer which was the cell phone service provider that first came to their mind.

On analysis, we found a well distributed brand recall amongst the telecom service provider brands that exist in India. Furthermore, it was encouraging to observe that Vodafone was the single most recalled brand amongst all telecom service providers. This indicates that a huge outlay on advertising, innovative brand communications, and high visibility and availability of the brand have translated into making Vodafone the top of the mind recall for consumers.

Brand Recall Pie-Chart

Brand Preference

Selective demand for a company's brand rather than a product and the degree to which consumers prefer one brand over another is called brand preference. In an attempt to build brand preference advertising, the advertising must persuade a target audience to consider the advantages of a brand, often by building its reputation as a long-established and trusted name in the industry. If the advertising is successful, the target customer will choose the brand over other brands in any category.

The approach to measure brand preference was to first ask the consumer which was the brand he is currently using and which brand would he like to use. This would tell us if his preferences have changed and would also give us an insight into how consumers perceive their current telecom service providers. It is important to note this emotion of the consumer in the light of the upcoming Mobile Number Portability (MNP) rule which the government and service providers are currently mulling about.

Exhibit 1 shows the current service providers of the consumers and Exhibit 2 shows what they would actually prefer.

Exhibit 1

The pie-chart in Exhibit 1 represents the current usage of service providers with Airtel and Idea forming a 53% majority of the service provider in use. Vodafone is third with 20% of the people currently using the brand.

Exhibit 2

When asked about the service provider they would like to use the share of Vodafone users increased from 20% to 29%. This shows that if the MNP were to come into place and if the shuffle of telecom subscribers were to happen, Vodafone would be a net gainer and this would be largely because it enjoys an elevated level of brand preference. This is a constructive sign for the company as high brand preference is very hard to achieve in the modern state of competition. As we move forward we will find the reasons as to why Vodafone is so highly preferred.

Opportunity for the Brand

A static brand can quickly become irrelevant. But brand innovation also has its risks. Patterns that have played out in other industries can help managers anticipate when and how a brand must change. Once a brand achieves strong relevance and awareness, it serves to create longstanding barriers to entry even when newer competitors' products are superior or much cheaper.

Brand innovation can take place internally through research & development or it could occur externally by understanding the opportunities that are being created due to increased competition and an informed consumer. A brand has to continually scout for opportunities to better itself and its perception among the consumers of its product.

Brand opportunity can be gauged by understanding consumer behavior. One needs to understand what is pulling a consumer away from your brand and what feature about your brand is underperforming to have the same effect – pulling the consumer away from your brand. The Exhibit 3 shows the reasons why people are with their current telecom service providers and Exhibit 4 shows which features of Vodafone brand promise are underperforming to create a negative perception of the brand. In short it is the opportunities that are being missed by Vodafone to make it a better brand.

Exhibit 3

What is understood till now is that schemes and benefits which provide value for money are the factors that pull consumers to subscribe to a telecom service provider.

Exhibit 4

It is appalling to observe in Exhibit 4 that one of the vital brand promises of Vodafone i.e. customer service quality, is the one factor that consumers feel is impeding Vodafone from being the best cell phone service provider. Value for money, another imperative brand promise is the factor they feel is second; to customer service quality, is impeding Vodafone from being the best.

From the observations, an understanding of the opportunities that Vodafone can capitalize on is created. Vodafone is a company which focuses on customer service through its brand communications in the form of “Power to You” and “Happy to Help”. It has to ramp up its customer service and is value propositions to make the brand more effective in the market.

Vodafone should try to focus on promises it has made to its customers and faltering on these would be detrimental to its survival. Pricing has to be made innovative and should be centered on creating value for the customer through product bundling and pioneering tariff styles.

Brand Image

Images evoked by exposure to a named brand are known as Brand Image.

Like brand personality, brand image is not something you have or you don't. A brand is unlikely to have one brand image, but several, though one or two may predominate. The key in brand image research is to identify or develop the most powerful images and reinforce them through subsequent brand communications.

The term "brand image" gained popularity as evidence began to grow that the feelings and images associated with a brand were powerful purchase influencers, though brand recognition, recall and brand identity. It is based on the proposition that consumers buy not only a product (commodity), but also the image associations of the product, such as power, wealth, sophistication, and most importantly identification and association with other users of the brand. In a consumer led world, people tend to define themselves and their Jungian "persona" by their possessions.

Good brand images are instantly evoked, are positive, and are almost always unique among competitive brands.

Brand image can be reinforced by brand communications such as packaging, advertising, promotion, customer service, word-of-mouth and other aspects of the brand experience.

Vodafone over the years has had many different brand communications. The study was to measure which of these brand communications was the most successful and to know if the brand communication was strong or the brand itself stronger.

It was encouraging to find out that the consumer did not mistaken a non-Vodafone communication to be a Vodafone communication. This shows the effectiveness of Vodafone brand communications.

But the brand was remembered more for its innovative campaigns rather that its brand promise and brand attributes. This was something that was caused due to the innovative and memorable “Pug” and “Zoo Zoo’ advertisements. They formed 70% of the brand images that people remembered when they hear Vodafone. Vodafone needs to focus more on communicating and performing its brand attributes rather than just coming up with innovative campaigns as sales is the bottom line for all these activities and a well kept brand promise will go a long way to increasing sales.

Brand Image Pie-Chart

Brand Recognition

Brand Recognition is the extent to which a brand is recognized for stated brand attributes or communications.

In some cases brand recognition is defined as aided recall - and as a subset of brand recall. In the case, brand recognition is the extent to which a brand name is recognized when prompted with the actual name.

When the respondents were asked what they most associated with Vodafone a continuation of the brand image trend occurred. 50% of the respondents said they associate the name Vodafone with Zoo Zoo’s and 30% said they associate it with the brand logo. In this case the brand logo is dwarfed by the Zoo Zoo which is not necessarily a good observation. This means that repeatedly the brand Vodafone is being associated with the character of Zoo Zoo. It is not known for its logo nor known for an experience which the customer remembers when interacting with the different brand attributes of Vodafone. It is known by a character in its brand promotions and this is dangerous as experiences give an emotional attachment rather than characters from brand promotions.

Brand Recognition Pie-Chart

Brand Satisfaction

Brand Satisfaction is established only by the experiences that customers have, across each of the brand’s touch-points, over the course of time. Like it or not, these customer experiences—more than our design and marketing—define what the brand is all about. Vodafone being a service provider has many customer touch points.

The customer will form the basis of his experience on the treatment that he receives at every touch point. This experience will form the basis for his brand satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Vodafone has touch points from the time the customer buys a sim card, network service while calling, and assistance available in solving problems, changing customer schemes to paying bills in the automated Vodafone kiosk.

A majority of the respondents felt that their brand satisfaction with the Vodafone brand fall in the range of “Good” to “Satisfactory”. Very few thought it is excellent but over one-third of the respondents feel the Vodafone brand is not satisfactory. This is menacing for a brand trying to focus on customer service. A minority in the “Excellent” category and a one-third majority in the “Not Satisfactory” category lead us to conclude that more of Vodafone’s customer base is disgruntled with it than delighted. Dissatisfied customers do more harm than customers in any other category. Vodafone should focus on reducing these dissatisfied customers rather than try and gain new ones in newer markets as they soon will fall into the “Not Satisfactory” category if the current way on failing on fundamental brand promises continues.

Brand Satisfaction Pie-Chart

Brand Personality

It is a comprehensive concept, which includes all the tangible and intangible traits of a brand, say beliefs, values, prejudices, features, interests, and heritage. A brand personality makes it unique.

Brand personality is seen as a valuable factor in increasing brand engagement and brand attachment, in much the same way as people relate and bind to other people.

Majority of respondents have said that they feel the brand personality of Vodafone is in the strong network that it carries. This is a direct relation to the “Pug” campaign where the dog represented the network and the message communicated the strength of the network. This gives us a strong pointer that the Zoo Zoo campaigns did a lot for the brand recall but did not change the brand preference and hence the Vodafone is still known for its network coverage rather than its customer service - the communication given out through its latest advertisements.

Brand Personality Pie-Chart

Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty, in marketing, consists of a consumer's commitment to repurchase or otherwise continue using the brand and can be demonstrated by repeated buying of a product or service or other positive behaviors such as word of mouth advocacy.

The audit tried to determine the consumer's commitment to repurchase, advocate or recommend the Vodafone brand to others.

Along with brand preference, brand loyalty has been the two measures where the Vodafone brand had failed miserably. With a majority 63% of respondents saying they will not recommend Vodafone to anyone else, it is a very worrying statistic and one which may sound the death knell for the Vodafone brand in India. Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is now a real threat along with companies trying to gain an edge with their 3G and Wimax services. In such a situation having unfavorable brand loyalty and downbeat word of mouth may be disadvantageous to the brand.

Brand Loyalty Pie Chart

Conclusion

The brand audit of Vodafone has given many insights into where the brand currently is, where it should be per se its communications and where it has gone wrong. The major finding in the audit has been to discover that Vodafone enjoys a great brand recall value but is badly affected in the brand satisfaction and brand loyalty areas of the audit. This means that Vodafone does exist as a telecom service provider in the minds of telecom consumers but it may not be the most preferred service provider.

Vodafone is currently in a very delicate situation with close to equal amounts of customers wanting to move away from Vodafone and one-third of the consumers wanting to move to Vodafone. This situation has developed because the company has a focus on gaining new customers as compared to retaining the current ones, which is leading to dissatisfaction. The dissatisfaction is because the current customers are given below par customer service; one of the fundamental brand promises and the focus lies on advertisements and innovative brand communications. Innovative brand communications is healthy for brand recall but not relevant for brand satisfaction and brand loyalty, as this can be achieved only through performance and not through communications.

A significant number of people still want to be part of Vodafone family as it is perceived to have a strong network, an attribute missing with most of its competitors. It should couple this with their current brand promise of customer satisfaction to gain considerable market share when future challenges like Mobile Number Portability (MNP) and 3G and Wimax are introduced in the Indian telecom market.