BSNL calls for Rs 70 crore pitch; to change brand ambassador too

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), one of the country's largest telecom companies, is inviting offers for its creative, media and PR duties. Sources claim the business is worth Rs 70 crore.

BSNL also plans to bring on a new brand ambassador. Reliable sources confirm that actor Deepika Padukone may take over the reigns from the current brand ambassador, Preity Zinta. Zinta came on board in June 2006. Talks for bringing in the new face are almost over, though the deal is yet to be finalised.

Padukone is endorsing brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Close-Up, Limca, Maruti Alto, Chemistry Apparels, Maybelline New York, Parachute Advansed, Kingfisher Airlines, Tissot, Pepsi and Fiama di Wills.

The performance of the empanelled agencies will be reviewed every three months. In the event of a performance being unsatisfactory, BSNL may terminate the contract with an agency by giving a written notice of one month.

After empanelment, each agency will be asked make a creative presentation and also provide an annual media plan. BSNL may select any of these plans or even come up with its own plan based on the presentations. Once the media plan is finalised, BSNL will invite all empanelled agencies to quote the price for the implementation of the selected plan for one year.

The tender further states that the agency whose script is selected will be entitled to 5 per cent commission on the production cost of the TVC/ radio jingle. Of the approved price of production, 95 per cent will be paid to the producing agency/ production house.

In 2006, Euro RSCG, Grey Worldwide and Media Direction (the media arm of RK Swamy/ BBDO) had won various portions of BSNL's portfolio. Grey bagged the corporate duties as well as the duties for CellOne. The landline and data businesses, including the One India campaign, and DataOne's creative duties were handed over to Euro RSCG. The media duties were handled by Media Direction.

Sources say that BSNL still works in typical PSU (public sector unit) style, which makes it difficult to create competitive communication comparable to aggressive private players such as Airtel and Vodafone. Pointing out that BSNL changes agencies every two years, they also say that it's important for a brand to allow an agency to work on it for a longer period of time to enable better understanding of the brand.

According to the TRAI Report for quarter ending January-March 2008, the GSM subscribers base reached 192.70 million in the quarter ending March 2008 as against 172.23 million at the end of the previous quarter. The quarterly growth for this quarter is 11.89 per cent. Bharti remains the largest GSM mobile operator with 32.16 per cent market share, followed by Vodafone with a market share of 22.9 per cent.BSNL is third with 18.79 per cent and Idea follows with 12.45 per cent.

The report also depicts that the CDMA subscribers base has reached 68.37 million during the quarter ending March 2008 as against 61.39 million at the end of December 2007. The quarterly growth in this quarter is 11.37 per cent as against 11.44 per cent for the previous quarter. Reliance remains the largest CDMA mobile operator with almost 57 per cent market share followed by Tata Teleservices with 35.58 per cent. BSNL is third in the CDMA category as well, where it is far behind Tata Teleservcies with 6.7 per cent market share (a gap of 29 per cent from Tata).