My roadmap is to be a robust seller now: Shubhodip Pal

Earlier this year, Shubhodip Pal joined YU Televentures as Chief Operating Officer. The brand has been undertaking various innovative initiatives to connect with the youth, such as the #YUPlayMusic social campaign, which gave people a chance to choose and play their favourite sound tracks on Radio One in Delhi and Mumbai.

Another activity was a pure digital initiative that allowed listeners to stream music without opening music sites or downloading a specific music app. The special integration with Gaana ran live on a host of popular mobile and desktop sites, including Facebook, where listeners could simply search and play their favourite song inside the YU + Gaana creative.

In conversation with AdGully, Shubhodip Pal speaks about the marketing strategy for YU Televentures, taking the brand forward, the competition and more. Excerpts:

What is the overall marketing and advertising strategy behind YU Televentures?
My roadmap is to be a robust seller now. I am going to communicate with more a consumer-centric graph and be specification-centric. The communication will be tailored around the right consumers. Communication as a whole will complement the mediums, especially the digital medium. We are continuously present on TV since last week of May and will continue to do so for the remaining year.

How is a brand, which was purely driven by PR and Social, being taken to the next level?
As classic marketers would do on things with digital media. The way to use one medium and complement the others is the marketing strategy. So TV is as good as print which is as good as any other medium. However, the media consumption is different. I don’t go by the BARC or any such numbers, but would rather keep a track on the happenings in social media – what are people talking about, what they are hearing about. I try to do things which are related to the market and which makes sense for the brand and with which the youth are concerned. On the whole, it is nothing but how I can use each medium, complement it with the other mediums and then make sure that pan communication happens.

How does YU plan to evolve with its evolving Target Audience?
As for target audience, I don’t have a choice, but this country is of the youngsters or the Millennials, as we call them, who are important. So for me, as far as the target audience is concerned, it is vast and varied. The name of the city or the place doesn’t matter for the way to reach out to the right audience.

Please tell us about the 360-degree integrations for marketing tie-ups with radio, print and electronic media.
We have associated with Gaana. I concentrate more on music and am very particular about what genre of music I use. When it comes to sports, cricket is obviously a no-brainer, but we also look at alternate sports. The marketing is all about the medium and the properties and amplifying the product around them.

Are you also looking at sports like kabaddi and football?
No, I am not looking at mass sports at all. As far as we are concerned, if I say 10 million people watch F1, whole of Europe watches, in India also everybody watches. This is a perfect example of how big this market is today and we have a right segmentation strategy, and right marketing and communication strategy as well. Micromax now has a much larger goal over here.

Competition in the smartphone market is intense, what is your game-plan to counter the strong competition?
I don’t find the competition strong, I don’t find it intense at all. I strongly feel that with the right communication strategy and distribution of channels, I can create a path for my brand. And as long as Micromax would last, we can pick up the best.

What are your key growth markets in India?
I am looking at the 16-25 segment. We are looking at the social media population. That is where the youth are. And with the 4G revolution also coming in, I think the time is right. 

Please share your plans for growing on demand music on mobile and web.
We had Gaana as our strategic partner for the World Music Day. As part of this integration, any Micromax or YU phone had a Gaana app already in it for consumption. For on demand music, Radio One partnered with us. Listeners could simply tweet their song request to @Yuplaygod with #YUPlayMusic and tune in to enjoy their favourite song on the radio station live. For me, partnerships are more important. With the right partner, you can amplify the product that you would want to. So it is not that because I am the client and I am spending a lot on it they have to follow my directions. They own the music. They understand it better.

What do you consider as the immediate growth challenge for YU Televentures?
To create a brand that is quick in connecting with the consumers. My job for the next six months is to hammer YU Mobiles into low penetration sites as soon as we launch the models.