Nonaka et al in their work " The Knowledge Creating Company " say
"In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of sustainable competitive advantage is knowledge. Yet, few managers understand the true nature of the knowledge-creating company and how to manage it."
The theory of Nonaka's work at 1995 is very much applicable even now and is practical... something’s in life doesn't need a change because they are created in an extremely perfect way (Edison's design of the bulb which hasn't gone for a major design change )
In this post I try to compare the advertisements of two major Voice and Data service providers namely airtel and Vodafone and analyze how KM has helped them brand their products
Airtel: Bharti Airtel, formerly known as Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited (BTVL) is India's largest cellular service provider with more than 75 million subscribers as of August 2008.[1] It also offers fixed line services and broadband services. Airtel is known to invest a lot in branding and some of their advertisements brought people like
King Khan from Bollywood, No matter what he does in the AD the product becomes a huge success. Airtel knew what it customers want to see.
Just when everyone thought airtel was not doing right in the music part of their ad they roped in
Not only did they rope the musical genius they also roped in the sporting legend Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar. In a country like
They didn’t stop there. Something like this was always there for all classes of people
A sage expressing himself
It’s 2008 and time to bring in the chemistry’s and Physics of Indian film industry do the talking and hence they made
Madhavan and Vidhya Balan’s the new brand ambassadors for airtel came with series of ads for airtel which showed not only the good chemistry between the couple but also used the fluids to heat up airtels value added services.
In short I conclude the airtel story saying they always knew what their customers want. They had the strong knowledge base of their clients, vendors and partners. They also had big banks which had money (These days credit card checks gets bounced not because I don’t have money but my bank doesn’t) to sponsor their high budget advertisements. The moment they had the knowledge they managed it very well to grow their business in all parts of
Having seen some chapters from airtels story its time to listen to what Vodofone is saying
Vodofone (erstwhile HUTCH): Vodafone Essar, previously Hutchison Essar is a cellular operator in India that covers 16 telecom circles in India [1]. Despite the official name being Vodafone Essar, its products are simply branded Vodafone. It offers both prepaid and postpaid GSM cellular phone coverage throughout
Hutch strategy was simple and brilliant when their neighbors were roping all possible film starts and sports personalities they brought
A Kid with his cute pug dog which always follows him no matter where he goes. Their music score for this ad was excellent with beautiful cinematography in an awesome location. Hutch’s message was very simple yet very powerful
“Wherever you go our Network follows”
Their series of ads became so popular despite the same message a new powerful brand ambassador emerged
It was even reported that after this ad the sale of pug dogs in
When Vodofone took over from hutch there were huge questions raised in the mindsets of people who have always enjoyed Hutch ads. But finally
Vodofone used the most powerful feature of KM called Re-use. Why to think hard for the ad when the pug has already done it all.
And when this whole country was waiting to witness a sporting fiesta called the IPL 20-20 Vodafone made this
Replaced the boy with a girl come up with a new song and market their services with an even powerful message
“Happy to Help”.
People in this country have never witnessed such a creative ad and everyone loved it. Till date this is one of the most downloaded videos in youtube. Vodofone had all the knowledge and information but launching it during the IPL period when peoples eyes are glued to the television is the where the effective management part lies. A knowledge well managed by Vodofone.
Vodofone after this ad not only strengthened their position in city but also pitched well in villages and town panchayats.
I conclude here by returning to the starting point where nonaka says “In order to sustain in this economy where the only certainty is uncertainty the one sure source of sustainable competitive advantage is knowledge” and airtel and Vodafone had that knowledge used and reused them to become leaders in their business.
8 comments:
Great analysis subash.
Good example of being aware of environment and being agile to leverage opportunities. Innovation driven by knowledge...
Today new knowledge is exploding and super agility is required to change and keep pace, so change needs to be treated as a norm.
A lot of critical knowledge may not even need any technology to manage.
The problem comes when we think conventionally (portals, CoPs, search, DM, BI etc) about KM which actually needs a paradigm shift.
There is a downside to ad. When your service do not match the claim it may become like a joke. For example, there was a joke about Hutch coverage that like the dog it it always following you but never reaches you!
Excellent analysis Subash. Very nice case studies of reuse. The anaysis makes much more sense since we know about these ads very well.
I like your point on the reuse of Hutch dog ad with some changes so that the central theme remains constant thereby the attention of the viewers does not get distracted too much. This is a point which I try to drive also. We should not reinvent the wheel - reusing also needs some competence. Appropriate reuse needs some special skills. KM is all about sharing one's knowledge and reusing knowledge shared by someone.
People always think that reuse means directly taking something and deploying and hence claim that "this won't work here". What is central to reuse is take the essence and customise this to your current environment and pass on the lessons learnt so that someone else again takes this. It is a continuous improvement cycle.
It also shows that there is a successfull alternative to copying the best practice of the industry (using stars in ads)
apparently, Airtel is able to use knowledge in one area, but not in a lot of others ...
http://atulrai1.blogspot.com/2008/08/study-in-contrast.html
which is why i dont think they can really be termed a knowledge-creating company ...
Good note. But there could be different dimensions to it. Ad with celebrities is very expensive. So they try to reuse until people get bored. Airtel tune by A.R. Rahman is great – that definitely goes into the minds of people. If an Ad becomes a super hit, then they might not want to take the "risk" by trying something new & better.
The content and approach of the ads involving Madhavan and Vidhya Balan (for Mobile) is extremely good. But it may not work in Rural areas. Reusing this knowledge there could be a failure. This is where constructive confrontation or knowledge convergence help understand and create new knowledge. I very much enjoy the emotional ads from Airtel. So we should either reuse or create new one with the context in mind.
I very much miss the Hutch ads in Chennai now. It is just amazing - it had varieties, communicated the message well and definitely creative. May be less expensive compared to those involving big celebrities. It very much leverages collaboration and innovation part of KM but not much reuse.
Ad is a creative process. So I feel new thinking, right knowledge, personalized messages, continuous change and ability to relate to the context better are the success factors.
Reuse of Celebrities may be due to the contractual obligations and the cost associated with it and less to do with leveraging lessons learned (reuse).
In my opinion, customer service, timely help and good experience at the right price are the only things that matter to retain customers and grow. This is where KM plays a vital role to identify & develop talents, create & reuse operational knowledge, gain visibility into organizational strengths / weaknesses and the get insights into customer satisfaction.
Ads do not matter to me but great customer service is. Without the ability to keep the workforce smile, harness the collective operational knowledge and change (the operation) when necessary, we cannot call an organization a learning organization - or a knowledge creating company.
Very Good observation and collection of KM themes from ads. Your previous post gave an idea of KM's inability for sharing "Driving lessons" but which could possibly help in Dosa making. I felt that K Managers should be aware of such things as the ad companies are- what our people like, what they dislike in sharing etc.
hi
good comparsion
see you later
mitesh
http://realityviews.blogspot.com/
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