Brands

Is there a market for advertising on feature phones?

Published

12 years ago

August 2, 2014

MUMBAI: When HUL’s ‘Kan Khajura Tesan’ campaign came back home with a Gold Lion in the mobile category from Cannes this year, it took the whole industry by surprise.

The campaign rolled out by the FMCG giant was an effort to reach out to the media dark areas. ‘The Kan Khajura Station’ a 15 minute free, on-demand, entertainment channel was a service where people could give a missed call and then get entertained for free.

The brand created a new media through a rudimentary mobile phone that brought people out of media darkness and connected them with the world. According to the brand, the activity was done at a cost of Rs 6 per person. This campaign was executed in Bihar and Jharkhand.

This is not the first time that the country’s largest consumer good company had executed a campaign for people with feature phones in the country. It can be recalled, couple of years back the company’s detergent brand Active Wheel had also used missed call as an advertising inventory to catch the attention of consumers in UP and Bihar.

Further to this, the company is now collaborating with local grocery shops and is working on making custom-made caller tune as part of a new marketing initiative. This means that when a consumer calls up the shop to place an order he/she will be informed about various promotions and offers on the various brands from the house of HUL. According to economic times, HUL has piloted this initiated in Mumbai and Delhi.

If studies by International Data Corporation (IDC) are to be believed feature phones still hold over 70 per cent of the Indian mobile market. Experts in the space are optimistic that the scenario will change the game. A recent IDC report mentions that India is the fastest-growing market in Asia-Pacific, with a year-on-year smartphone shipment growth of over 186 per cent in 1Q 2014.

Is there still a market for advertising on feature phones in country where smartphones are growing exponentially?

Digital Quotient COO Vinish Kathuria believes there is a lot of scope of exploring this market. According to him, advertising opportunities on feature phones revolve around text and banner ads on WAP sites, IVR based outreach and SMS and missed call strategies which are being used interestingly even today by many big brands.

Out these advertising options, missed call as tool looks to be promising to many other experts. In a recent development, Facebook announced that it has introduced missed call inventory to boost its advertising revenues in India that counts for the second largest user base for it.

This advertising tool will allow mobile phone users to click a button that calls an advertiser, immediately hangs up and then receives a return call. The return call delivers pre-recorded audio messages about everything from sponsored cricket scores to information about shopping discounts, minimizing data charges for the user.

The social networking site has partnered with ZipDial for this. In early tests of the missed call ads by L’Oreal-owned haircare product Garnier Men, the ads led to a 2.5 times year-on-year increase in online sales, according to Facebook.

When asked how different is it to execute an advertising campaign on feature phone than on a smartphone, ZipDial founder and CEO Valerie R Wagoner mentions, “We don’t believe in thinking of it as advertising on feature phones but rather advertising to consumers who have feature phones.”

Wagoner thinks media activations with these set of mobiles can deliver great results. She is of the opinion that every media whether print, television, outdoor, or even digital ads should have a mobile call-to-action to make it interactive and to drive ongoing engagement with consumers in a targeted and personalised way.

“While a QR Code is relevant to less than 1 per cent of mobile consumers in India, a missed call is the easiest thing that anyone could do from any phone,” adds Wagoner.

She informs that ZipDial is collaborating with Unilever to work on expanding this success globally across emerging markets.

Apart from this the cost is minimalistic. Running a campaign on feature phones might cost a brand anywhere between Rs 3 to 6 lakhs mentions a senior media planner.

The Roadblocks

Having said that, thought there is a huge opportunity in using mobile as a broadcast channel to directly reach consumers, it has to be done very carefully, especially for consumers on feature phones.

“Advertising potential is significantly lower on feature phones because of two main reasons. One is the limited screen size and phone’s processing makes it harder to offer plethora of multi media advertising options. Two, availability of apps and usage of it are significantly lower. So, in-app advertising, one of the biggest mobile advertising categories, is almost non-existent,” says Kathuria.

Brands should never spam users. Wagoner states, “Blasting SMS or voice calls can be extremely intrusive. However, SMS and voice Calls are a very powerful tool when you use them in combination with protecting consumer privacy. For example, standard industry response rates to generic push SMS blasts are around 0.1-0.2 per cent. However, response rates to SMS sent to ZipDial followers are between 9-56 per cent because users give permission and are in control of the content they receive.”

It is extremely necessary to have personalised experience which targets the right message to the right consumer at the right time that will successfully lead to behavioural change, conversions and business impact across this segment.

”The difference is that there are thousands of companies designing for smartphones (especially companies in the West and developed markets), and there are very few innovative companies designing and building good advertising technology for emerging markets,” concludes Wagoner.

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Brands

Netflix India names Rekha Rane director of films and series marketing

Streaming giant bets on a seasoned marketer who helped build Amazon and Netflix into household names

Published

4 weeks ago

February 9, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Netflix has put a proven brand builder at the helm of its films and series marketing in India, naming Rekha Rane as director in a move that signals sharper focus on audience growth and cultural cut-through in one of its most hotly contested markets.

Rane steps into the role after seven years at Netflix, where she has quietly shaped how the platform sells stories to India. Her latest promotion, effective February 2026, crowns a run that spans brand, slate and product marketing across originals, licensed content and new verticals such as games.

A strategic marketing and communications professional with roughly 15 years’ experience, Rane has spent much of her career building technology-led consumer businesses and new categories, notably e-commerce and subscription video on demand. She was part of the early push that introduced Amazon.in, Prime Video and Netflix to Indian homes, then helped turn them into everyday brands.

At Netflix, she most recently served as head of brand and slate marketing for India from March 2024 to February 2026, leading teams across media and marketing for global and local content portfolios. Before that, as manager for original films and series marketing, she led IP creation and go-to-market strategy for titles including Guns and Gulaabs, Kaala Paani, The Railway Men* and The Great Indian Kapil Show, spanning both binge and weekly-release formats.

Her earlier Netflix roles covered product discovery and promotion in India and integrated campaign strategy to drive conversations around the content slate, product awareness and brand-equity metrics.

Before Netflix, Rane logged more than three years at Amazon in brand marketing roles in Bengaluru. There she handled national and regional campaigns for Amazon.in, worked on customer assistance programmes in growth geographies and contributed to the go-to-market strategy for the launch of Prime Video India.

Her career began well away from streaming. At Reliance Brands in Mumbai, she worked on retail marketing for Diesel and Superdry. A stint at Leo Burnett saw her work on primary research for P&G Tide, mapping Indian shoppers’ paths to purchase. Earlier still, at Orange in the United Kingdom, she rose from sales assistant to store manager, running a team and owning monthly P&L for a retail outlet.

The arc is telling. As global streamers fight for attention in a crowded Indian market, executives who understand both mass retail behaviour and digital habit-building are prized. Rane’s career sits at that intersection.

For Netflix, the bet is simple: in a market spoilt for choice, sharp marketing can still tilt the screen. And with Rane now leading the charge, the streamer is signalling it wants not just viewers, but fandom.

Brands

Orient Beverages pops the fizz with steady Q3 gains and rising profits

Kolkata-based beverage maker reports stronger revenues and profits for December quarter.

Published

4 weeks ago

February 9, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: A fizzy quarter with a steady aftertaste that’s how Orient Beverages Limited, the company that manufactures and distributes packaged drinking water under the brand name Bisleri closed the December 2025 period, as the Kolkata-based drinks maker reported improved revenues and a healthy rise in profits, signalling operational stability in a competitive beverage market.

For the quarter ended December 31, 2025, Orient Beverages posted standalone revenue from operations of Rs 39.98 crore, up from Rs 36.42 crore in the previous quarter and Rs 33.53 crore in the same quarter last year. Total income for the quarter stood at Rs 42.24 crore, reflecting consistent demand and stable pricing across its beverage portfolio.

Profit before tax for the quarter came in at Rs 3.47 crore, a sharp improvement from Rs 1.31 crore in the September quarter and Rs 0.39 crore a year ago. After accounting for tax expenses of Rs 0.79 crore, the company reported a net profit of Rs 2.68 crore, nearly three times the Rs 0.99 crore recorded in the preceding quarter.

On a nine-month basis, the momentum remained intact. Revenue from operations for the period ended December 31, 2025 rose to Rs 117.66 crore, compared with Rs 106.95 crore in the corresponding period last year. Net profit for the nine months climbed to Rs 5.51 crore, more than double the Rs 2.18 crore reported in the same period of the previous financial year.

The consolidated numbers told a similar story. For the December quarter, consolidated revenue from operations stood at Rs 45.06 crore, while profit after tax came in at Rs 2.06 crore. For the nine-month period, consolidated revenue touched Rs 133.57 crore, with net profit of Rs 4.49 crore, underscoring the group’s improving profitability trajectory.

Operating expenses remained largely controlled, with cost of materials, employee benefits and other expenses broadly aligned with revenue growth. The company continued to operate within a single reportable segment beverages simplifying its cost structure and reporting framework.

The unaudited financial results were reviewed by the Audit Committee and approved by the Board of Directors at its meeting held on 7 February 2026. Statutory auditors carried out a limited review and reported no material misstatements in the results.

In a market where margins are often squeezed by input costs and competition, Orient Beverages’ latest numbers suggest the company has found a reliable rhythm not explosive, but steady enough to keep the fizz alive.

Brands

BCCL profit jumps 53 per cent in FY25 as tax bill shrinks

Revenue rises 4.3 per cent to Rs 10,209.33 crore while deferred tax gain lifts bottom line sharply

Published

4 weeks ago

February 9, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

NEW DELHI: Bennett, Coleman and Company (BCCL) has posted a sparkling set of financial results for the year ended 31 March 2025, proving that there is still plenty of ink and gold left in the ledger.

Revenue from operations climbed a steady 4.3 per cent, reaching Rs 10,209.33 crore compared to Rs 9,786.44 crore the previous year. When you sprinkle in other income, which rose 8.9 per cent to Rs 949.36 crore, the total income for the media behemoth hit a healthy Rs 11,158.69 crore.

While the income grew at a modest pace, the bottom line tells a far more dramatic story. The real headline is the 53 per cent surge in annual profit. How did they pull off such a feat? While Profit Before Tax (PBT) saw a gentle nudge upward of 2.7 per cent to Rs 1,610.00 crore, it was a vanishing act by the taxman that really did the trick.

Total tax expenses plummeted by 32.4 per cent, dropping from Rs 468.76 crore down to Rs 316.97 crore. This was largely thanks to a swing in deferred tax, moving from an expense of Rs 156.02 crore in FY24 to a benefit of Rs 39.44 crore this year.

Total income rose from Rs 10,658.55 crore in FY24 to Rs 11,158.69 crore in FY25, marking a 4.7 per cent increase. Total expenses grew at a slower pace, up 3.0 per cent from Rs 9,306.06 crore to Rs 9,581.45 crore. Profit before tax inched up 2.7 per cent, moving from Rs 1,567.02 crore to Rs 1,610.00 crore. However, the standout figure was net profit, which jumped sharply by 53.0 per cent, climbing from Rs 1,042.03 crore in FY24 to Rs 1,594.73 crore in FY25.

Despite the rising costs of doing business across the globe, BCCL kept a tight grip on the purse strings. Total expenses rose by just 3.0 per cent to Rs 9,581.45 crore. By keeping costs lower than the rate of income growth, the company ensured that the final figure, a net profit of Rs 1,594.73 crore, was nothing short of a front-page sensation.

In a world of shifting digital tides, it seems the BCCL ship is not just steady, but sailing into significantly wealthier waters.