Kingston pens an advertising strategy

We’ve seen ads for pens, but here’s presenting India’s first ever TV commercial for a pen drive.

Kingston, the technology company known for memory manufacturing/ upgrades globally, has launched a commercial for its pen drives – a first for Kingston as well as for the category (in India).

Kingston entered India formally two years ago, prior to which the products were being imported. Thus far, Kingston’s pen drives were being marketed only to the trade belt (distributors, salesmen, etc.). “Having established strong trade links, we thought it was time for some ‘pull’ marketing and, hence, decided on communicating directly with customers,” says Vishal Parekh, marketing manager, Kingston Technology, Asia Pacific.

The pen drive category in India is hardly driven by brand loyalty, to put it mildly. At the retail level, consumers are simply attracted to the pen drive with the most space. “Before even thinking of creating building loyalty, one needs to build a brand first,” says Parekh, explaining the need for a branding exercise at this point.

Having the crowned status of the first advertisers in this category in India, Kingston had a large canvas to work on. However, the brand decided not to adopt a typical technology driven route, unlike what Kingston does globally. “This is because we don’t want to overwhelm our TG (target group) with too many technical details. We want it to be more of a lifestyle product,” Parekh explains.

The youth – Kingston’s TG – know of the various uses of a pen drive, but don’t tend to apply them too often. “Beyond being a backup for data, it can be used in cars, for instance, to listen to music,” says Parekh. And this is the creative route adopted by Six Inches, Kingston’s recently appointed agency. Apparently, 11 agencies had taken part in the pitch process once Kingston decided to go the whole hog with its advertising, but Six Inches was chosen due to “the personal attention given to work”, according to Parekh.

To convey the personalisation of a pen drive and the amount of space it offers, Six Inches worked around the insight that the youth of today face tremendous pressure: Be it pink hair or body piercing or partying late, they want to express their individuality to break away from that pressure. “Youth today seek space, which we juxtaposed with the space offered by a Kingston drive or card,” says Pravin Shah, creative head, Six Inches. This led to the ‘It’s My Space’ idea.

The TVC shows a group of girls disallowed entry to a discotheque due to lack of space. Then, a young man, who’s driving by, helps them by creating his own disco space: He attaches his Kingston pen drive (containing songs) to his car music system and manages to blast the place outside the disco with music, much to the delight of the young bunch.

A print campaign highlights the things that the youth are tired of hearing and shows them doing their own thing. This campaign is running in computer/ gadget magazines, photography magazines and youth publications. Furthermore, through tie-ups with educational institutes such as the IIMs, IITs and colleges, Kingston wishes to educate people on the uses of a pen drive and how it can actually help save paper and effort (instead of hard copies, pen drives can be used to circulate/ collect assignments, etc.).

Kingston also sponsored the MTV Roadies Awards held recently. Road shows, retail branding and merchandise (T-shirts, logo tattoos and bandannas) are also on the agenda.

Ad spends for Kingston for this financial year amount to Rs 7-8 crore.