QMobile has made the advertising industry sit up and watch. But it is time for the brand to now define its positioning clearly, writes Muhammad Ahmed.

300x300 QMobile - Kareena“QMobile is considering big league filmmakers Michael Bay, Alfonso Cuarón and Christopher Nolan to take on the reins for their next series of smartphone commercials.”

Admit it, the smile on your face when you read that sentence would have been a downright smirk a few years ago. What has changed since 2008 to earn such a very desi brand the right to make such a boast? The answer? Everything!

And everything, it seems can be said about QMobile’s communication. Every addition to the brand’s (now international) celebrity roster registers its own polarised reaction. Product launches either receive a big nod or a big shake of the head from both online and on-ground audiences. QMobile’s flexed media muscle ensures nothing goes unnoticed. The brand performs, audiences react. The performance gets bigger and so does the reaction. But how big can the performances get? Bigger!

However big or small, the brand’s communication has entered the sacred confines of agency-client brief discussions.

Subtly tagged on at the end of most briefings, there used to be the Olper’s request to: “Do something larger than life.” Or the Servis request: “Can we try a jingle that slices across demographics?”

For challenger brands, these requests have been replaced by: “Can’t you make us the QMobile of our category?”

Marketing circles are beginning to sit up and notice. That by itself, however accidental it may seem, is no simple feat. QMobile has become a category on its own.

No, a better mouse-trap has not been invented. Brand building via celebrity endorsement has always been a hallmark of global lifestyle brands. Nike does it, TAG does it, Gianfranco Ferre, Dior and Versace do it. But the most successful examples of brand endorsement have used it as one component of the overall marketing mix. The celebs chosen are always compatible in terms of identity, personality and positioning. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods front the brand Nike. Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Jeff Gordon and Maria Sharapova lend their lifestyle credo to TAG Heuer. With a consistent long term association, meaning begins to transfer between compatible celebrities and brands.

Pakistan is not alien to endorsements either. Lux has always associated itself with beautiful stars. Dalda leveraged expert chefs. Walls’ Magnum was driven by lifestyle influencers. We are all comfortable with Shahid Afridi attributing his single mindedness to his dandruff free hair. Effective celebrity associations, however, has always been compatible, consistent and long term.

Consistency is where QMobile seems to falter. Look across various touchpoints and this becomes painfully obvious. The celebrities have been coming and going faster than the lead characters are killed off in Game of Thrones. The stories told have ranged from camp to slapstick to sophisticated, almost ephemeral dips into the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The brand stories seem to be struggling to be too many things to too many people. If traversed, this way forward leads to where most telecom operators have already been. The brand will be nothing but a store window where celebs stand and sell merchandise.

Granted, in local terms, this is a generic, feature driven market. Globally, the ball game has evolved. From feature-marketing, need focused pitches to a higher order want-creating, consumer focused one. With intense competition, global giants have moved towards forging emotional bonds with customers. Look at Nokia staying true to ‘connecting people’ for the longest time. Or, Samsung or Apple delivering sharply on their respective value propositions.

Realising that this is the age of storytelling, tech brands are positioning themselves as enablers and investing in the technology that will help consumers craft their own stories. In India, Mircomax (a similar brand to QMobile) is pushing for such an enabling role. Outsmarting global giants on their local turf, Micromax is mimicking their behaviour with a product that is very high on perceived value for money. If not this way, then in some other vein, it is definitely time that QMobile defined its positioning clearly.

Consumers need to know what QMobile is not. Only then will they grasp what the brand stands for. Perhaps now that the brand enjoys mass attention, this is the perfect time to define and own a long term value proposition. An integrated communication push could bring the brand’s big idea to life. But then, what is the big idea? Is it anything beyond being a celeb-touting, market share swanking, unpredictable, attention seeker? If it is, then fans who have graduated from awareness to trial will climb up all the way to advocacy in the blink of an eye. Of course, the brand will have to deliver on that clear big idea across all touch points in the marketing mix.

Even if this doesn’t happen (warning: diehard, loyal fan-boy-speak ahead) and QMobile chooses to stay the course of star studded stories, it could still be the first brand to dip its toes in the almost-revived cinema industry. Is it too much to expect a Shoaib Mansoor-QMobile production? Perhaps soon, we will have our own version of a QMobile short film series a la the BMW’s The Hire. Perhaps the next Lollywood sensation will be the QMobile girl (anyone remember the Jazz girl?). Perhaps a solid way forward would be a platform where QMobile creates stars from among the public. How about QMobile Style Awards or a rebranded National Academy of Performing Arts?

The landscape carved by this quirky, passionate brand name is changing. Other players in the ‘made-in-China-yet-branded’ market are upping their game and vying for consumer attention. The competition, however, would fare better acknowledging QMobile as king in this category-of-one. A more effective strategy for challengers would be to push for an entirely different value proposition. Hopefully (while we microwave our social popcorn), as soon as the category settles, we will witness Coke versus Pepsi style rivalry happening – and with the best possible outcome, consumers win.

Who knows what possibilities tomorrow holds. For now, dear QMobile, thank you for changing everything. For giving people something to talk about. For bringing an executional difference to an otherwise mundane storyscape. For reviving good old 80s style anything-goes sell-sell-SELL advertising. And most of all, for trying to be a potentially solid, very cool, indigenous Pakistani brand.

Muhammad Ahmed is Creative Director, Interflow Communications. m.ahmed@interflow.com.pk