Tata Motors on overdrive with new campaigns and launches

Tata Motors has kicked off its campaign for its newly-launched flagship SUV –Harrier during the Vivo IPL 2019. The TV campaign comprises a ‘Mini-Series’ of TV ads that hinges on the story of ‘Love At First Drive’. This is the second year of Tata Motor’s association with Vivo IPL, after a successful partnership last season. 

Tata Motors has been tapping into key occasions to release campaigns that not just promote its cars but also highlight various issues. Earlier this year, Tata Motors launched a digital film on Republic Day for its compact SUV Nexon that addressed the issue of road accidents.

India has an infamous record of the greatest number of casualties in road crashes per year. To address this serious concern, Tata Nexon launched the ‘Ask the Right Questions’ campaign on the occasion of India’s 70th Republic Day. The aim of this initiative was to bring about a behavioural change among the audience by influencing them to ask safety-related questions first while purchasing a vehicle. The thought behind the campaign was – ‘Public Safe, Toh Republic Safe’. 

Watch the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qed632qQoQU 

Conceptualised and launched digitally by WATConsult, the initiative focused on changing people’s mentality – from asking “Kitna Deti Hai?” to “Kitni Safe Hai?” It aimed to provoke the audience to move away from enquiring about performance, style and comfort of a car first, to asking the right questions about its passenger-protection features and thus, putting their #SafetyFirst. Recently, Tata Nexon became India’s first ‘Made-in-India’ and ‘sold-in-India’ car to achieve Global NCAP’s coveted five-star crash test rating. 

Tata Motors also launched a digital film on Valentine’s Day underscoring the theme of safety. 

Watch the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WPcA6sWYaQ 

Coinciding with Women’s Day, Tata Motors introduced their latest campaign, ‘Her Key’ crafted by FCB Ulka. Inspired by women who get behind the wheel every day, Tata Motors strived to get more women to do the same. 

When one buys a car, they get two keys. The second key is usually considered the spare one. Harping on this insight, Tata Motors repositioned this spare key as ‘Her Key’, which is meant to be a symbol designed to empower more women to drive and bring equality and freedom to the roads. 

Sometimes all it takes is a little encouragement and Her Key is expected to go a long way in inspiring women to take on the road with confidence. It is important that women recognise the fact that driving isn’t a privilege, but a right and comes with its own freedom. 

Watch the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLCifQI5yFY&feature=youtu.be 

Adgully spoke to Vivek Srivatsa, Head - Marketing, Passenger Vehicles Business Unit, Tata Motors, to know more about the auto major’s campaign strategy. Excerpts: 

People usually don’t like being told what to do, especially in their driving styles. How have you circumvented that behaviour in your push for safe driving awareness?
It’s true that people don’t like to be directed on what to do, but I think our campaign was more suggestive, because when people buy a car, there are so many questions that they ask. We realised that sometimes customers don’t ask the right questions. I think it is something we should all be fairly concerned about. Road accidents kill far more people than any other single source combined. We are just oblivious to it. Safety is becoming more and more important to the Indian car buyer. We track data, we do large-scale surveys and when you look at the last 10 years’ findings, you find that there are 3 top factors influencing car buying decisions. Through our campaign we have highlighted that you need to ask the right questions which are related to safety rather than some peripheral features which might not be so important. So, that was the spirit in which we made this campaign. 

Do you believe that digital platform is uniquely suited to promote campaigns with a social message or you want to go with the traditional way?
I think digital is very ideal. There are two reasons for this: first is that the cost of entry into digital is far lower than what the cost used to be in a TV serial. It is very expensive to make TV serials and also very expensive to run. So obviously, advertisers stick to traditional messaging about the product, price, promotion, whereas digital gives us much a bigger landscape of communication. We can be more creative, we can arrive at a point where we wouldn’t imagine spending money on making a TVC. So, digital is democratisation of communication for sure and I think it’s a very big change in the mass media community. 

While consumers are very sentimental about what car they buy and the pride associated with owning one’s own vehicle, does responsible advertising resonate with them?
Absolutely! I think it is the duty of the advertisers to be extremely responsible in what kind of messaging we give out. At the same time, customers are also influenced by responsible advertising. Tata Motors, being a part of the Tata Group, we are extremely sensitive to sending out the right messages while we advertise – whether it is TVC or digital films. We promote safety, gender equality and many more things. We want to communicate the right message and we believe that the more customers see the right level of messaging on the films that they see, so does their behaviour change accordingly. Therefore, I think that’s a right way to go.

Marketing
@adgully

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