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INTRODUCTION-WHY VIRGIN MOBILE? In Indian mobile market, Virgin mobile is a unique player based on its business model andstrategy. It is the only service provider which does not hold any bandwidth and mobile setupinfrastructure but uses Tata Teleservices spectrum and is penetrating market totally on itsbranding and marketing strategy. Creating a niche brand and promoting it to specific customersegment with proper marketing has been the key success factor for virgin mobile across theglobe. So, from marketing and customer understanding point of view, this is a very uniquecompany to study. UNDERSTANDING VIRGIN’S BUSINESS MODEL : Virgin has promoted itself as the brand for young India, keeping the Indian youth as its targetcustomer segment. The idea behind targeting this segment can be f ound inherited in virgin‟s business model. The different marketing perspectives are explained in fig 1. The salient features of Virgin‟s business model from customer perspective are: 1) With intensive competition and reducing voice tariffs, the profit margins for voice serviceare decreasing day by day. So, the future profit strategy is maximizing profit marginsthrough data services and it is youth segment which provides maximum data servicerevenues.2) Future projection of increasing young and working population of India as 65% of overallpopulation by 2020.3) Increased use of data services in future due to technological advancements. So, in mobile sector where all other players are trying to provide similar service to different customersegments, virgin is targeting specific segment with tailor made plans keeping its long term goals in mind. Fig 1: Creating Virgin brand through various market channels VIRGIN MOBILE BRAND NETWORK TataTeleservicesBluedart DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL OnlinesellinRetailAccess PRODUCT DESIGN Paid incomingcalls50 paisaSTDVBYTESValue addedservices COMMUNICATING VALUE PROPOSITION Youth centricadvertisementsYoung &VibrantwebsiteSamsung COMMUNICATING THE VIRGIN BRAND: Virgin mobile has communicated itself as the youth oriented brand of India through variouscommunication channels. They are:a) “Think Hat ke” advertisement campaign targeting youth b) Red and vibrant website look with youth focused language (Fig 2)c) Tailor made plans for young segmentd) Getting paid for incoming calls: a source of recharge option for youth TARGET MARKET : The Virgin Mobile Brand, targets Indian youth aged between 14 and 25 years. There are 215million people in this age group. Out of this, 70 million own a mobile phone and this segment isexpected to add another 50 million new subscribers in the next three years.Though youngsubscribers constitute only 30 percent of the total mobile subscribers, they contribute more than50 percent of the revenues of telecom industry. By 2010 this group is expected to contribute 60-70 percent of total revenues.The distinct mobile phone usage habits of the young users provide a huge advantage to VirginMobile. They make more and longer out-bound voice calls, which means huge billing potentialfor service providers. The usage of SMS, data services in the form of mobile internet, mobileshopping and other value added services like ring tones, caller tunes, wallpapers, etc are veryhigh in this group which again provides a huge opportunity to be tapped. Moreover young usershave a short handset up gradation cycle-under 12 months as compared to two years for peopleabove 25 years of age. CUSTOMER ACQUISITION AND RETENTION STRATEGIES: The company knows that they are trying to position themselves into a very established andcompetitive market. They understand the fact that they cannot start making profit from day oneneither they have plans for it; they anticipate to achieve a subscriber base of 5 million in nextthree years and will make profit afterwards they will be able to break even in three year or so.According to the patron, Sir Richard “We want to deliver a more tailored and relevant offering for a single segment.” Company targets only 10% of the above mentioned segment and have plans to acquire and retain them by various innovative propositions, some of them are- 1) Providing services which were not offered so far a) Get paid for incoming calls.b) 50 paisa for all calls across the country.c) A brand truly meant for the young India which is reflected at each & every touch point.d) Extensive data service offers in the form of vbytes.e) Excellent value added plans.f) Go online facility for enquiry, purchasing phone, recharging and everything.g) One touch VAS access from every virgin mobile. 2) Providing services which others are not providing meticulously a) Easy to change the handset from a wide range of handset providing at very reasonableprices.b) Boring customer care services telling you are in queue.c) One customer care officer dedicated for all queries of one customer leading to transparency.d) No jammed or bad network coverage.
