UFONE

MARKETING STRATEGIES
► MARKET SEGMENTATION
Cellular service market is a diverse set of people.
Ufone as well as other cellular service companies
segment their market on four bases: - economy, age,
gender & occupation.
I. ECONOMY : Upper class, Middle class, socio-
economic class, lower class
II. AGE : Teenagers, youngsters, middle age, aged
people
III. GENDER : Male & Female
IV. OCCUPATION : corporate class, Business class,
working class etc
　
► TARGET MARKETS
Cellular phones are the technology of new era, the
21st century. These cellular phones are the main focus of our youngsters. All the cellular
companies are targeting The Youth one way or other. Ufone is no longer a follower in this
race. Its main focus is “THE YOUTH” of Pakistan which is its Target Market.
Target marketing strategy
Ufone has always been targeting Youth Market by using young brand endorsers or
ambassadors. It always brings such packages and offers that precisely meet the needs of our
young people. No doubt it has also launched packages, brands and offers for working
people, business class, ladies and aged ones. Ufone seeks to target masses in the long run.
► POSITIONING
Positioning is the process of creating an image of company’s brand in the mind of market.
Companies position themselves emotionally, functionally or on the basis of brand quality.
Ufone is still a market challenger in comparison to market leader MOBILINK. It is still to
reach to the top most position of cellular companies. So Ufone positions itself on the basis of
its services.
Ufone’s former Positioning Statement:
“Everybody Loves to Ufone Prepay “
Ufone’s new Positioning Statement:
“Ufone tum hi toh ho! “
Or
“It’s All About U”
Ufone’s positioning strategy:
Ufone changed the image of mobile phones from a luxury only affordable by the elite, to a
necessity affordable by the common man. Since its inception, Ufone has positioned its brand
for “MASSES” on the basis of services it is providing and its lowest call rates. It makes them
believe that it satisfies the needs of everyone (viz all classes, age & genders). It tells them
that Ufone is there when anybody needs it. The brand name UFONE itself is a positioning
statement.
► DIFFERENTIATION
In these days of intense competition marketers find it hard to differentiate their services from
those of competitors. Now customer care about only price. An unsatisfied customer will
immediately go for brand switching. Thus leaving a customer unsatisfied and not meeting
his/her demands is out of question for marketers.
Differentiation Strategy :
Ufone has always strategized in satisfying the demands of its customers. In doing so it has
been successful in differentiating itself in terms of:-
ü Price
ü Quality service
ü Technology
► CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
With 28 million mobile users in Pakistan, Ufone is having a subscriber base of around 7
million. Ufone is showing a remarkable growth rate. It is maintaining a healthy customer
relationship through its “customer service centers” and “call centers”. Its department of
“Customer Operations” is specially designed for maintaining Customer Relationships.
Customer Relationship Strategy:
Ufone strategize to build and maintain strong customer relationships in order to build long-
term customer loyalty and to capture customer lifetime value. In this context Ufone has been
training its internees and permanent employees in the fine art of interacting with customers.
It is also strategizing to offer gifts & rewards for its long-term customers in its PostPay to
match the wonderful customer relationship strategy of INDIGO.
► TOTAL MARKET ORIENTATION
Total Market Orientation is about understanding and meeting customer’s expressed and
latent needs.
Strategy :
Ufone has always considered the ever growing needs of low call rates and quality service. It
has provided its customers their needed packages and has introduced such brands &
packages that meet customer’s latent needs as well. For example 5 ka 15 is result of a latent
need of women of our society. They plan to make a short call but it becomes a long one
unintentionally due to gossips and chit chats J
► COMPETITORS
There is a hard core competition among the cellular service providers in Pakistan. Ufone is a
market challenger in its competitive position, where MOBILINK is the market leader.
Warid, Telenor and newly introduced ZONG are also strong contenders in market challenger
category. Ufone has the following four direct competitors:-
Mobilink
Telenor
Warid
Ufone also considers the following as its competitors:-
ü ZONG (former PAKTEL)
ü PTCL WIRELESS
ü Wateen
ü WorldCall
Competitive strategy:
Ufone’s competitive strategies are Customer intimacy and Differentiation. Ufone aims at
fore passing Mobilink in its competitive race.
MARKETING MIX
1 - PRODUCT/SERVICES
Ufone is a service providing company. Service is any intangible product that consists of
activities, benefits or satisfactions offered for sale.
Strategy:
Ufone makes strategies to provide a better cellular telephonic service which excels its
competitors at all levels. When Ufone launches a new package in a market, it actually makes
it a complete package of core benefit, design, features, brand name, quality, and after sale
service.
2 - PRICE
Cellular service providers are facing intense price competition in contemporary market.
Customers perceive pricing as the heart of brand selection. Price has always been the core
differentiation of Ufone. Ufone is the one who is offering least call rates off-network.
Strategy :
Ufone strategize to capture the existing pricing needs of its customers and use it well on
occasional or timely basis. For example Ufone offered very good call rates on international
calls in Eid days. It offered hourly call rates in Ramadan when people were least likely to
avail the offer that much that it might prove unprofitable for Ufone. It was a fantastic
strategy to beautify the brand image in term of pricing in customer’s minds as well as remain
profitable in doing so. Ufone follows market penetration pricing strategy and dynamic
pricing strategy to meet the customer needs and ever changing price competition.
3 – PLACE
Place plays a very important part in the distribution and promotion of services.
Competitors of Ufone are seeking to penetrate into places where others haven’t reached.
Cellular service providers are drastically widening their network & coverage in every area of
Pakistan. Mobilink has this edge in place excellence because it is the pioneer in cellular
telephonic field.
Strategy :
Ufone strategize to widen its coverage to all places in Pakistan in order to meet the
requirements of its increasing customer base. Now Ufone is heading from cities to remote
northern areas in expanding its network. Ufone has intensive promotion in cities, but it is
also considering improving its promotion in rural areas as well.
4 - PROMOTION
Ufone believes in Integrated Marketing Communication which is a carefully blended mix of
promotion tools. Ufone employ different marketing activities and channels to communicate
and deliver value to customer. These activities are coordinated to provide maximum
communication output. These communication channels includes:-
Advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing & personal selling.
Ufone strategize to carry out promotion in order to increase its market share.
Strategy :
v Advertising (discussed later)
v Sales Promotion (discussed later)
v Public Relations : Ufone is less conscious of developing its general public relations. But
recently it has launched its “Hajj Guide” service on Ufone. It avoids getting in news stories
and controversies but sometimes it proves inevitable.
v Direct Marketing : Ufone employ on-road umbrella franchises where the directly market
and sell their connections and Sims.
v Personal Selling : Ufone administer personal selling facility to sell their PostPay
connections targeting well to do people and businessmen
› It won’t be an exaggeration to say that Ufone has placed itself where it is now through
brilliant promotions.
REPORT TOPIC : SALES PROMOTION & ADVERTISING
“SALES PROMOTION”
“Sales promotions are short term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or
service”
Ufone utilizes sales promotion activities to boost its sales. It follows all four of the
promotion budgeting methods viz affordable method, percentage of sales method,
competitive parity method and objective & task method.
Ufone uses following sales promotion tools
Contests:
Ufone carried out contest for cricket talent hunt in the year 200_______. Our renowned
Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Akhtar was used as patron for this contest. However this contest
didn’t do much good to Ufone’s image or sales. But Ufone holds future plans to carry out
such activities in more effective and profitable ways.
Games:
Ufone is currently running its game show on ATV prime time. This game show rewards the
winning participants. Ufone updates its customers every now and then to participate in this
game show. The problem we see in this activity is that Ufone is not properly advertising it.
Premiums:
All the cellular services are now offering premiums for their customers. This premium is
offered, when a customer don’t use his/her sim for more than 3-6 months, in the form of
extra credit balance delivered to their numbers for free
Free tickets:
Ufone recently offered free trip to Dubai. It was Ufone’s first Eid offer. Every time you
make any international call of 5 minutes or longer than 5 minutes, you enter the lucky draw
to win a return ticket to Dubai. The more calls you make, more is your chance to win.
Promotional Products:
“Phone bhi Ufone bhi”. It was a promotional offer By Ufone where it offered a mobile
phone, free air time, Ufone connection and Rs.100 airtime all for Rs.999.And now Ufone
also offers Blackberry mobile sets with PostPay connection.
Another recent promotional offer by Ufone is that with your HBL Credit Card; get a free
handset of your choice, a Ufone PostPay connection and airtime. Existing as well as new
HBL Credit Card customers may avail this offer.
SALES PROMOTION STRATEGY:
Ufone strategize to take aid of sales promotion whenever it sees a minor drop in its usage by
its customers. They mostly go for pull strategy in promotion i.e. they spend a lot on
advertising and consumer promotion to induce final customers to avail their services. Ufone
applies sales promotion schemes continually in order to keep its customers loyal and happy.
ADVERTISING (& DEVELOPING AD COMPAIGNS)
“Any paid form of non personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by
an identified sponsor”
ADVERTISING OBJECTIVES:
Ufone use advertisements when…
v It has to inform the customers about new or available services
v It seeks to persuade people to purchase their service or switch to their connection from any
other connection
ADVERTISING BUDGET
Ufone is a heavy spender on advertising in electronic media as well as other media. Recently
Ufone invested a huge amount on mass advertising. It was definitely a risk to take such
decision. They are developing and playing new advertisements on electronic media not even
with a month’s gap or so.
A single Ufone advertisement played 15-20 times per day on a TV channel costs millions
varying with the time of day when it is played. Ufone spends 20% of its profit on advertising
and sales promotion.
ADVERTISING STRATEGIES
Advertising strategy consists of two major elements: Advertising Message & Advertising
Media. Ufone has the following strategies regarding the Message and Media of advertising:-
ADVERTISING MESSAGE:
Message Content --»The very first content of Ufone’s advertising message was humor, and
then in its blooming stage it shifted its message content to youthful excitement. Recently
Ufone has again adopted humorous theme for its message content. This time Ufone is
winning the hearts of people through humor and it has increased RPI of Ufone. Ufone has
already generated much revenue through it.
Message Format --»The format of Ufone’s advertisements has always been very colorful and
eye catching. The shocking Orange & Green colours used by Ufone have always attracted
people. These colors look beautiful on wall printing of Ufone.
Message Source --»The very first Ufone advertisements had Faisal Qureshi as its message
source. Afterwards Ufone hired non-celebrity young models for its youthful message theme.
Ufone also hired three lollywood queens i.e. Meera, Jia Ali and Veena Malik with Mikaal in
an advertisement of “Baat Ban Jaye”. This advertisement created a big controversy
regarding the erotic and sexually attracting acts by the three female models. Due to negative
response by people Ufone had to vacate its billboards and eradicate its banners, posters etc
overnight, as directed by CEO and CMO of Ufone.
But now Ufone has again hired a comedian trio featuring Faisal Qureshi, Mikaal &
Hammad. The strategy behind hiring this trio is that they are economical and are personal
favorites of people. Ufone always hire endorsers in group
· Mr.Waqas Anjum (Senior Marketing Executive-Multan) is of view that you must bring
changes in marketing to attract customers. For this purpose Ufone is re-launching itself
under the name of one single brand called “UFONE”. This brand would have Orange &
Black as its corporate color instead of conventional Orange & Green color.
ADVERTISING MEDIA: To increase the reach and frequency of advertisement Ufone is
using repetitive strategy for its advertisements. And the humorous theme always makes the
ads more appealing and engaging the minds of customers. Ufone advertise in the following
media types:-
Print Media --»Ufone tries and print ads in all leading newspapers including The Dawn,
Jung, Nawa-i-Waqt, Khabrain and local Sindhi newspapers as well. Ufone place its ads in all
leading magazines as well i.e. Sunday magazine, akhabr-e-jahan, Libas, Mag etc
Broadcast Media --» It is the prior choice for Ufone. It includes the electronic media
television and radio. Ufone is advertising in all Pakistani channels including GEO, Hum,
ARY, Indus, TV one, HBO, Cartoon Network etc (except MTV Pakistan). Ufone also plays
its ads on local channels like WASEB and Punjab TV.
Display Media --»This type of media is the second choice of Ufone where it carries out its
most of sales promotion and advertising. Ufone advertise using billboards, hoardings, signs
(on Shop boards etc), posters, wall paintings etc. SME Multan has used a new and
innovative vehicle in display media i.e. Ufone’s painted rickshaws
Online Media --» Internet is the online media. Ufone places flashing ads on famous portals
like coolbuddy.com, pakfellows.com etc. But Ufone is not carrying out direct mail or direct
e-mail advertising
Events --» Ufone has sponsored many events in the past and holds future plans concerning
it. The famous event sponsored by Ufone in 2006 was a series of musical concerts did all
over Pakistan, featuring Mikaal Hassan and Junoon, it named UROCK
AD SHOOTS: The ads of Ufone are shot mostly within Pakistan. But the PostPay ads are
shot in foreign locations. Recently Ufone shot in the picturesque locations of northern areas
of Pakistan in its advertisement of UWON “sabse sasti call”
CONCLUSION
By keenly analyzing the marketing of Ufone, we group member agree that Ufone is not a
safe player in the market. It is penetrating its market by taking risks and aggressively
promoting & advertising itself. It holds second largest market share and is seeking to
become the market leader anyway possible. We came through very unconventional
strategies and ad campaigns while working on this report. We believe that mobile services
are the toughest market to enter and survive. And in this tough market Ufone isn’t only
surviving but growing at an exceptional rate.
Ufone is using humorous theme in its ads which has become its benchmark. People enjoy
watching, discussing and following Ufone ads the most. And it is the biggest achievement of
Ufone in recent times.
The study of advertising usually begins with a focus on creative strategy and tactics.
Creative strategy determines what the advertising message is going to say while the
creative tactics deal with how the message strategy will be implemented.

Humor is one of the most widely used techniques in advertising around the world, as
about one out of five television ads contain humorous appeal. Although the use of humor
in advertising has its origins in the early days of the business, its widespread use as
advertising strategy is a more of a recent phenomenon.

However, few studies in this topic have addressed the fact that advertisements attempting
humor vary dramatically in the level of humor they actually evoke in the target audience.
While some ads are spectacularly successful at raising a laugh, while others fail to do so.

In Pakistan, use of humor in advertising is not a very common practice; however, there
are some brands that have used it successfully and made lasting impact in the minds of
the consumers.

Currently, the telecom sector, undoubtedly, is the biggest advertiser in Pakistan both in
terms of advertising spend and airing of television commercials. This sector has used
humour successfully in their advertisements which was first introduced as an advertising
platform in telecom by Asher Yaqub Khan, a local marketing guru of the telecom
industry.

His managerial career took off at Ufone’s launch where he was a significant team player.
Working as a manager marketing he was the first one to implement the idea of humor in
Ufone’s commercials. The TV viewers must have remembered the Salma and Shabbo
commercials which Faisal Qureshi, Adeel Hashmi and his team had produced.