Videocon d2h is leading DTH service provider which offers over 570 channels and services. It has a pan-India sales and distribution channel, an established service orientation and a track record of introducing technologically innovative product and service offerings. Videocon d2h has over 300 own service centres spread across 7500 top towns in India to attend and resolve the service issues within 4-6 hrs.We present to you the ‘BTL Baatein’ of the week which is powered by VISCOMM with Anuka Roy speaking to a spokesperson from the organisation about Below The Line (BTL) advertising, the focus of the company and the balance between ATL (Above The Line) and BTL
How important is BTL to your overall marketing plan?
We are an entertainment eco system player, hence experiential marketing is very critical in converting at the point of sale, that is, the retail outlets. Consequently, BTL plays a pivotal role in our marketing mix. Most retail outlets stock other brands of DTH as well. Starting from reminder at the point of decision making, that is, the retail counter to the utility of the demo set running Videocon d2h channels is essential to win marketshare. The BTL offers targeted consumer connects because it can be tailored to micro geographies. This is what makes BTL programmes very attractive for us. This is especially true as the current phase of digitisation of TV is DAS IV areas i.e., very small towns and the villages.
Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion?
There are four types of BTL activities we focus on:
1. Permanent visibility – on shop and in shop permanent merchandising elements – Lit and non-lit dealer boards, lollipops, lit and non-lit both, brand walls within the shop, glass panel branded one way vision films , and some amount of shutter painting in interior pockets
2. Medium-term outdoor presence linked to market needs
a. Wall paintings (last year, we did 6.5 Mn sqft) that last roughly 4-6 months
b. Hoardings (1-23 months) linked to festival linked buying spurts in specific markets
3. Tactical paper-based POS – posters, leaflets, flanges, package stickers
4. On-ground experiential programmes
a. Exhibitions and Haat/mela activity – caters to deep rural markets and allows direct consumer experience leading to conversion into purchase. There are by our estimate more than 6000 rural haats/melas of various kinds that have sizeable congregations. And rural being the core focus of the DTH market, haats and melas offer a naturally available channel. We also do targeted van activity to supplement the haat/mela programmes.
b. Consumer connect and activation programmes linked to long-term brand properties like Mumbai Indians, IIFA and the recent in film branding of the Salman Khan block buster – Sultan
The list is endless; there are various innovative ways to reach out to our audience through BTL. We keep experimenting with different ways apart from the list as given above.
Can you give a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?
We spend a massive proportion of our budget in BTL, roughly 45% of the budget. Our focus in BTL has been threefold:
> First is to ensure coverage using data to segment retailers into various importance buckets
> Second is to ensure outlet dominance and brand cut through
> Finally, to reinforce the brand DNA of innovation through attractive unique marquee elements
Do you prefer to do this through BTL agencies directly or via your existing creative/media agency?
We have a well-oiled process where the state-level marketing coordinates with the sales and distribution team to ensure seamless implementation of the BTL programmes. For specific, specialised BTL programmes, we do use external agencies. For example, for the on-ground programme we did with the movie Sultan, we had briefed the BTL activation arm of our agency Lintas, who did the conceptualisation, the creative, developed IT backbone and did the on-ground implementation. We are open to external agencies if they provide their expertise in specific fields.
In terms of generating results especially from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?
BTL allows direct consumer connect with the brand. There are still certain segments of customers who are as yet unfamiliar with the category, where this direct connect becomes very useful. If one were to measure cost per activation, BTL always turns out to be a very cost channel. However, the benefits of the experiential element and the last point reminder effect more than outweigh the investments we make in BTL programmes.
While sales and salience are good indicators of its success, what are the attributes you look at to measure the success of a BTL campaign?
We evaluate BTL through some time tested metrics:
:: Exhibitions, haats/melas are measured by two metrics – first the advertising benefit based on the audience reached using footfall data and second by the activations we generated through the presence in the event.
:: Normal on shop / in shop elements –while we do not do a ROI measure of this, the investment in each retail outlet is a function of its importance bucket which by definition is ROI oriented.
There are many organisations that often do new launches almost entirely on BTL aided with an outdoor and/or digital blitz? Your view on this. Given rising media costs, do you see BTL managing on its own, without ATL?
The use of a particular marketing mix should be entirely linked to the objective and ambition of the product/brand. For example, in our industry,. if an operator feels the biggest market for a new hardware variant like an external recorder (basically a feature that allows an external memory to be connected to the set-top box for recording) is the existing HD set-top box base, they can completely eliminate ATL and BTL and work only on subscriber-based marketing programmes to realise the sales targets. However, if a product like 4K Set-Top Box is being launched, a small focused ATL campaign supported by massive BTL in select high end consumer electronics retail outlets would be more suited. A one formula fits all would not be the right approach.
In our view therefore, it’s the size and location of the market which determines what approach we should take.