Summary
Airtel DTH - Unprecedented Growth in a declining category - A category which tested our skills, patience, determination and perseverance, but didn't falter our confidence. The ship was sinking and it required skilled sailors and fortunately the entire team stood up to maneuver it successfully. Although the category was going down like a house of cards in the storm, but we didn't move an inch and rose against the tide with 60% YOY growth.
Challenge
The objective at hand was to firstly hold the sinking ship and then sail it to the shore seamlessly. This is for Airtel DTH business, which faced a lot of challenges in terms of a declining category and high competition penetration in the market. DTH as a category was facing a declining trend in the consumer intent for the last 1 year and during this phase to capitalize on the slimmest of the opportunity, there was a major competition from established players in the market.
Objective
During this challenging phase, the task at hand was to firstly not let the business numbers go down but also drive growth. The key performance indicators at hand were to increase the per day activations for Airtel DTH but also to maintain a cost threshold which is profitable for the business.
Strategy
The task at hand required a 360-degree digital approach since a simple approach wouldn't have sufficed for the same. Thus to drive the business numbers, firstly we built an airtight search strategy along with focused push medium strategy and E-commerce, other 3rd party players like Quora, Paytm, Taboola, etc. On Google search, to encompass the plethora of consumer intent, we bifurcated our campaigns into brand, generic and competition intent and controlled our focus on each category. There were separate communication leveraged for each category and for brand and competition category we leveraged impression share strategy while for generic we went ahead with Target cost per acquisition strategy since we wanted a right balance between scale and controlled costs. For a category like DTH which is observing a declining trend, push mediums like Facebook needs to be leveraged with utmost attention and thus apart from the markets with high TV growth and 1500 local pin codes we identified key consumer surrogates on the platform like creating a lookalike framework of existing customer base, users showing affinity towards competition brands, and affinity segments like television, cable operators, etc. Apart from Google search, Facebook and payment players like Paytm, we identified one more opportunity on digital to drive the business growth and that was via the E-commerce players like Flipkart and Amazon. Users come on these platforms and search for best DTH connection, DTH connection, etc. and post identifying this behavior we planned to list our products on these portals and start paid promotion. On these platforms as well, we were covering intent related to our brand, generic category and competition as well and also layered this approach with a display approach for users seeking for for a new television and have recently bought a new television.
Data
Each consumer segment was identified with a very different approach on digital to turn the tide in our favor. Firstly, we identified the TV buying pattern in India in the last 2 years across each market and cut out a clear geo level strategy basis the intent of buying. All our push mediums where tweaked basis this, separate campaigns were created, which were focused on these geos to capitalize on all the opportunity created. Our strategy on Google search was tweaked and we started going aggressive on generic and competition DTH connection intent in these markets, since the intent for the same would be potentially on a higher side. The 2nd segment, which is the shift from local cable operators to DTH connection was the toughest to identify on digital mediums. Thus, to tackle this situation, we decided to sharp shoot in only pin codes where local cable players operates. We analyzed this data point from the TRAI report and identified 1500 pin codes in India which have a presence of local cable operators. Apart from 1500 pin codes we also identified portals where these users would be paying their cable operator bills and planned our presence on such platforms to reach the right TG at the right moment. To capitalize on the competition intent, we created a solid search structure to have presence on all the key players in the market. We opted for a target impression share strategy on search in certain key markets so that we don't loose out on any impressions for competition intent as well. The communication was also tweaked for these users and we leveraged offer led communication to drive higher engagements. For FB we used affinity towards players like Tata Sky, SunTV, Dish Tv and encompassed those users via offer led creatives.
Solution
As we identified 3 major audience cohorts to be targeted, viz, 1. Consumers seeking to switch from existing DTH provider 2. Users currently on local cable operators 3. Consumers buying a new television. Our creative approach across channel was also in-line with the audience cohorts identified, since we knew a user on a local cable operator would be suffering a lot of disruption issues due to cable and thus we pitched the fact that if you move to Airtel DTH, you will be getting a top HD quality. For users on competition DTH provider we pitched the key USPs for Airtel which is 4 hours installation, HD quality and superior service to all our customers. For consumers who have just purchased a new television we tapped onto the moment and pitched the fact that they will be needing a DTH connection and there is no better option than Airtel DTH in the market due to all the USPs.
Results
Post a lot of research across different areas, airtight digital strategy and focused approach across key platforms like Flipkart, Amazon, Paytm, etc. we were not only able to save the sinking ship but also seamlessly take it to the shore. We observed a YOY growth of 60% in per day activations for Airtel DTH Business and the cost per activations were below the thresholds of what is required for the business to be profitable.
