STP of Micromax

Although all Micromax products were towards the lower end of the pricing spectrum, the brand was focusing on adding more features at a reasonable price. The focus was more on value than price. Innovation, Cost-Effective, Credible and an Insightful R&D are given high emphasis at Micromax in the telecom vertical. Micromax based its value proposition out there, with extensive features vis-a-vis the big brands, of course with a low-price point with a target audience catering to the low-income groups and the rural households. It differentiated itself form its competitors on the basis of cost.

1. Using china as a manufacturing base: Micromax took pains to mark out those manufacturers in China who were working with global brands like Apple and Samsung. For instance FoxConn manufactures the handsets for Micromax too now. This has put Micromax in a better position to compete with other big brand by ensuring quality products.

2. Rural target market: The primary target for Micromax was the rural market, which it catered to by arming itself with a 30-day long battery phone and dual Sim phones. Both of them were a hit and that too at affordable prices. This entailed them with a market of their own. It’s not that other established players like Nokia or Samsung didn’t cater to this market. But Micromax was laced with more features, which the basic phones of these brands couldn’t offer. The rural population which chose features at lower cost over brand value, turned out to be a good start for micromax.

3. Early android adoption: When others were dishing out new operating software, or continuing with the old one (Nokia with Symbian), Micromax lapped up the opportunity of using Google’s Android. This helped them target the youth market in a better way. The aspiring youth, who couldn’t afford the high end Android devices, were targeted.

4. Product rollout: Where big international brand requires roughly 18 months for a similar product to go through the retail pipeline, Micromax takes barely a month or two to launch products. This has ensured that variety as well as new-technology adoption, which helps offer the customers something new regularly. Even the Canvas series, which has been selling like hot cakes, has helped it to scale up the brand value and reposition itself as not just a “cheap handset maker”. The pricing strategy adopted for this has helped it a lot too. The products, even its’ high priced Canvas are lower than Samsungs’ Galaxy series.

5. Promotional campaigns: It has targeted Cricket and bollywood as the basis of promotions for itself, which is directly catering to the Indian market as it is these associations, which has garnered it the visibility and also helped it shed its image of a Chinese phone to a Brand on its own. Recently it associated itself with a fashion show, where designers used its latest Canvas Turbo with full HD in the designing of their apparels. Of late, it has relied on premium associations so as to continue re-positioning itself, and shed its’ long standing image of a low-price player. Micromax has definitely repositioned itself and established a force in the mobile segment. Although issues like labour wages in china are proving to be a roadblock to its supply chain strategy costs , the LED Tv which it manufactures in its Gurgaon plant is surely a stepping stone and a probability that it can shift from china to India, provided with the appropriate build-up of its’ infrastructure environment.

In 2005, Nutrichoice underwent a radical renovation process owing to the changing of the management and its product portfolio as well the overall marketing strategy was overhauled. Positioning requires that marketers define and communicate similarities and differences between their brand and its competitors. Specifically, deciding on a positioning requires: (1) determining a frame of reference by identifying the target market and relevant competition, (2) identifying the optimal points of parity and points of difference brand associations given that frame of reference, and (3) creating a brand mantra to summarize the positioning and essence of the brand. The competitive frame of reference

The competitive frame of reference defines which other brands a brand competes with and therefore which brands should be the focus of competitive analysis. A good starting point in defining a competitive frame of reference for brand positioning is to determine category membership—the products or sets of products with which a brand competes and which function as close substitutes. We can examine competition from both an industry and a market point of view. An industry is a group of firms offering a product or class of products that are close substitutes for one another. Marketers classify industries according to number of sellers; degree of product differentiation; presence or absence of entry, mobility, and exit barriers; cost structure; degree of vertical integration; and degree of globalization. Using the market approach, we define competitors as companies that satisfy the same customer need. Three key criteria determine whether a brand association can truly function as a point-of-difference— desirability, deliverability, and differentiability.

Consumers must see the brand association as personally relevant to them. The company must have the internal resources and commitment to feasibly and profitably create and maintain the brand association in the minds of consumers. The product design and marketing offering must support the desired association. Finally, consumers must see the brand association as distinctive and superior to relevant competitors. Points-of-difference (PODs) are attributes or benefits that consumers strongly associate with a brand, positively evaluate, and believe they could not find to the same extent with a competitive brand. Associations that make up points-of-difference may be based on virtually any type of attribute or benefit. Strong brands may have multiple points-of-difference. Points-of-parity (POP) are attribute or benefit associations that are not necessarily unique to the brand but may in fact be shared with other brands. These types of associations come in two basic forms: category and competitive. Points-of-difference (PODs)