Missed Call Marketing

India has 833.02 Million active mobile phone users as of December, 2014. Around 90% of mobile phones connections in India are prepaid. Giving a “missed call” is very common in India. Over the years, missed calls have been used by children to tell anxious parents that they have reached somewhere, to summon their drivers, or people to order food, receive cricket scores and bank balances and just about any other information or content.

Social Platforms companies like Facebook and Twitter are building large revenues in India by Missed Call Marketing. There is money in this business, which is why Twitter recently acquired Indian Company ZipDial and Facebook forged a partnership with Vivaconnect. It is a business that could be worth as $1 Billion of annual revenue, without putting a time frame to the estimate.

In 2013, Consumer Goods Company Hindustan Unilever Limited looked at ways to increase engagement with its consumers in Bihar and Jharkhand with Missed Call Marketing. The company sets up its own mobile radio channel along with a campaign to build awareness. Consumers to could give a missed call to a number and in return receive 20 minutes of free, on-demand content, ranging from Bollywood songs to popular Hindi entertainment. The campaign racked up calls from around 30 Million people, nearly 200 Million ad impressions and the consumption of around 500 Million minutes of content. That was the power of harnessing something as simple as Missed call.

State Bank of India and GlaxoSmithKline have also used Missed call marketing in India. It is an easy and cost-effective means for brands to reach out to a larger target audience, particularly in semi-urban and rural markets where Internet penetration is low. While most campaigns push information at consumers, Missed Call Marketing works the other way round. Companies in the business say a missed call marketing exercise could come as cheap as a few lakhs, and cost up to several crores depending on size and scale.

Missed calls phenomenon is already prevalent in Africa and Latin America, where it is called flashing or beeping. ZipDial, which has worked with Procter and Gamble India Ltd and Colgate Palmolive Ltd is optimistic about the reach and scale of Missed call Marketing. Twitter will be integrating ZipDial platform into its core platform to enrich the user experience. ZipDial mobile platform lets people follow and engage with content across all interfaces, SMS, voice and mobile web, and also facilitates offline consumption of content.

Facebook has integrated the tool into its interface for select campaigns. When a person sees an ad on Facebook, he or she can place a missed call by clicking on the ad from a mobile device. In return, the user receives content like music, cricket scores or celebrity messages, and a brand message from the advertiser. Still, companies need to realize that the missed call campaigns may not always generate high quality leads. As the tool matures, marketers need to find out what works for consumers. As users become pickier about the kind of content they wish to consume, brands will need to ask themselves why consumers would want to seek out their brand.

A Poor Man Labour of Love

Dashrath Manjhi, a poor man from Bihar (India) made history when he chisels down a mountain in two decades. He uses his tools to create path for his community members. He is also known as Mountain Man. Everyday villagers from his town had to travel to other village to earn money, which was 70 kms away. One day his wife died due to an accident on mountain and he could not reach hospital because it was 70 kms away in the other town. This loss made the ambitious man to focus on his task.

If you are looking for an inspirational and motivational story then do not go far. Being an illiterate there was no option for him except to work in fields but the spark in him set out to carve a 1mk-long path through a rocky hillside, in order to make easier for his fellow villagers to access schools, markets, hospitals, and neighboring villages. People started taunting him in the beginning and called him mad for such a task but it was not possible for anyone to stop him. Now people in Bihar had nothing to say except “Mountain Man”.

With his chisel, hammer, and shovel this legendary man turned what was once a precarious one-foot wide passage into a 360 ft-long, 30 ft-wide road accessible by bicycles. Children had to walk eight kilometers to reach schools but that this brave man reduced distance to three kilometers.

Friends we always say “akela insaan kya pahad tod dega.” However, here is the answer of this old saying. Out of 1.2 billion population of our country, no one would dare to do such a task in today’s time but the man did it for his villagers and wife. This is such a motivational and inspirational story that no one would ever forget. He never received any compliments from Indian government except the path was named as “Dashrath Manjhi Road” in Gaya, Bihar.

In July 2010, director Manish Jha announced a film, Manjhi, based on the life of Dashrath Manjhi. Nawazuddin Siddiqui has been cast in the lead role in the film Mountain Man. Dashrath Manjhi story was also shown in Aamir Khan’s show Satyamev Jayate Season 1. I was so inspired by this story that it made me feel what am I doing for my country? One should take inspiration from this movie that if a person can carve out mountain alone then one can do anything in his life.

Source: Satyamev Jayate.