Virgin Mobile goes online to attract youth

Virgin Mobile, which entered the Indian telecom market recently by forming an alliance with Tata Teleservices, is using the online platform to reach out to youngsters in the country.

To begin with, the Richard Branson owned company has launched a website for Indian customers, www.VirginMobile.in. Initially, the site will provide regular information such as tariffs, the different models of mobile phones on offer, and other features such as ringtones, wallpapers and game downloads exclusive to Virgin mobile handsets. Later, Virgin has plans to make the site more interactive.

Prasad Narasimhan, chief marketing officer, Virgin Mobile, India, says, “Once the site gets traction, we will introduce engagement in it and make it more interactive. We will launch Zones on the site which will let users generate content on their own.”

Besides the website, Virgin Mobile has also rolled out an online campaign which includes both display and search marketing. Mindshare Interaction (Delhi) is handling the online promotion for Virgin Mobile.

According to Saikat Mohanthy, business manager, Mindshare Interaction, “To begin with, we have launched banner ads across major portals such as Yahoo!, MSN, Rediff, Indiatimes, Sify and even social networking sites such as Facebook, which will take users to the Virgin site. Search marketing is also carried out with youth related keywords such as ‘music’ and ‘games’.”

Mindshare Interaction is working on a viral campaign for the brand and has plans to use social media as well.

Apart from the online campaign, Virgin Mobile has rolled out two TV commercials which feature the URL of the Virgin site and it plans to air two more TVCs in April. A print campaign was carried out in newspapers, including The Times of India front page. There are plans to use OOH advertising, especially near colleges in major cities.