INTEGRATED MAKETING COMMUNICATION

Term Paper on

An a l ys i s on I nte gra te d Ma rke ti ng Communi c a ti on s tra te gi e s

for
He l i o Bra nd of E di s on G roup

Submitted to:

Md. Ridhwanul Haq, Phd

Associate Professor & Chairperson, BBA Program
IBA, University of Dhaka

Institute of Business Administration

University of Dhaka

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Edison Group is one of the most successful local handset seller in the history of Bangladesh. The
company has dominated the market with its price competitive feature phones manufactured in
China and then price competitive smartphones when people started to` move to the smartphone
for a long time. It’s flagship brand Symphony has been dominated the handset market from 2008.
Aggressive pricing strategy, contemporary features & styling, international quality build a strong
distribution network and after sales service have contributed to make Symphony Mobile the
preferred choice of Bangladesh customers. Besides Symphony, they have introduced Helio in
2017 to cater to the premium customer segment of Bangladesh Market.
The objective of this case study is to analysis the Integrated Marketing Communication Tools
adopted by Edison group to acquire the target market segment and it’s effectiveness.
Finally the study concludes that though

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1.0 BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Symphony is one of the most successful local handset brands in the history of Bangladesh. The
company has dominated the market with its price competitive feature phones manufactured in
China and then price competitive smartphones when people started to move to the smartphone
for a long time. Symphony started with offering low-cost and higher quality feature phones when
Nokia was still in the market. And it worked like magic. One reason of course Symphony targeted
a group of people who did not have access to phones at the first place and most importantly it
offered a phone with much less price than the available alternatives and of higher or at least equal
value.

This is the classic example of disruptive innovation, a term first described by Clayton Christensen
of Harvard. According to Christensen, a disruptive innovation is not a breakthrough innovation
that makes a good product massively better thus change the game. A disruptive innovation
transforms a product that was historically so expensive and complicated that only a few people
with a lot of money and a lot of skills had access to it and a disruptive innovation makes it
affordable and accessible so that a much larger population have access to it.It took feature phone
that was expensive for many people across the country and made it accessible to all. In doing so
it built a huge business.
However, this alone does not explain Symphony’s success. It must be acknowledged that it has
been able to build a massive and equally strong distribution network and execute on it as well.

Edison Group’s first company SB Tel Enterprise Ltd, established in 2005, started mobile phone
business under Symphony brand in 2008 providing a new experience to the consumers through
continuous innovation and product diversification.

Another two supporting businesses – Symphony accessories and mobile application (value-
added service- “Fun Store” powered by MoMagic Bangladesh)- added significant value to the
Symphony mobile phone users in 2011.
Symphony was the first to introduce Android mobile phones in Bangladesh. Now Symphony
mobile handset of smartphone market share is 43 per cent in Bangladesh and feature phone
market share is 50 percent.

2.0 THE PRESENT MARKET SITUATION

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After its massive success in feature phones, Symphony launched Smartphones, albeit low and
medium-end rage, and quickly became the market leader again until Samsung started to eat into
its market share and eventually other Chinese brands.
Despite the growing competition in the market, Symphony continued to dominate and grow largely
contributed by a few factors:
Symphony largely served the low-end market segment with a better quality phone for a better
price and Samsung along with other high-end brands did not compete in that market because
they already had a profitable business selling high-end phones and they did not consider the low-
end market as a highly profitable segment, a classic example of how disruption works in most
markets. This allowed Symphony to build a solid business and scale and in fact, in some cases
go up in the market.
The initial segment that Symphony targeted was a new segment of customers that high-end
phone manufacturers were not targeting at that time largely because they thought there was no
profit in that market and because they were making ample profit in the high-end space.
After its initial success, the company remained focused on growing its existing business mostly
through better distribution instead of investing in the future growth. In a sense, it became, for a
period of time, the incumbent that it was competing with.
Symphony has over the years built a higher quality but lower cost phone brand. This positioning
is now causing the company much of its trouble to break into the high-end market.
Technology has become extremely modularized making low-cost phones a less sustainable
advantage. Every phone company now offers low-cost phones intensifying competition in that
segment.
The market has changed in the meantime. Huawei, the China-based 3rd largest smartphone
brand in Bangladesh, has reported an unprecedented 232% inter-annual growth in sales between
2015 and 2016.
Although late to enter the market, Huawei has managed to build a strong brand image among
fierce competition with the likes of Samsung, Symphony, and Walton in Bangladesh. Based on a
report published by the Society for Consumer Research on November 2016, this Chinese
Telecom company now possesses 14.5% of the total handset market share in respect of its
volume and 19.1% with regard to its value in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has been going through surprising changes in mobile handset usage in the past few
years; particularly from 2013 when the market trend was fairly disrupted by an upsurge in
smartphone sales. However, despite that, customers still remain fairly price sensitive in terms of
purchasing quality handsets.

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3.0 THE STRATEGY OF EDISON

In the case of Edison a few things have happened for it. The company till to date, has failed to
launch significantly successful high-end and medium range phones. The company has come to
understand this reality and it has launched Helio Series to cater to the market. The disadvantage
that Edison had to endure in its early days was that the market was not demanding enough,
particularly for quality and features. It could easily make money offering low-end phones with
minimum innovation and investing in distribution.
However, over the past years, the market has changed. The success of any company depends
on the market, how demanding a market is that pushes a company to innovate. The market that
Edison served initially was demanding but not of the high-quality products or innovation, rather of
affordable products.
But with the introduction of new players with innovative product and competitive prices, Edison
felt the heat and realized that they need to reinvent their product to capture the market share
again.
While Symphony has built a great business for them, it has equally failed to build a loyal fan base
which Apple has or Oneplus has or even Xiaomi has, meaning Symphony’s competitive
vulnerability is quite high. Similarly, the company did a subpar job in building a high-end phone
category that can significantly improve its profitability as well as improve its image in the market
helping it retain its leadership in the low-end category by giving it a positing boost.
That is why they have been trying to achieve exactly that with Helio phone series targeting the
premium market segment. Their main objective is to provide the competitive price advantage for
the premium segment customer with higher value. The marketing communication strategies also
built keeping in mind this strategies.

4.0 THE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES

4.1 Objectives & Issues:

The Company set an aggressive but achievable objective for the first and second years of market
with their current promotional activities they have designed.
o First-year Objectives – Edison aimed for a 46 percent share of the B.T and Phone market
through unit sales volume of 96, 00,000.

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 o Second-year Objectives are to achieve a 50 percent share based on sales.
The other objective of the company is to establish meaningful positioning with Helio Series and
capture both lower market with Symphony and premium market segment with Helio at the same
time. Also one of the main objective of the company is to renovate their image as innovative,
quality and value conscious organization.
Also there will be a measurement system to gauge the awareness and response in order to make
adjustments to the marketing campaigns as necessary.

4.2 Target Market

Primary target customer of Helio Brand is the Higher & Higher middle income professional to
coordinate their busy schedules and communicate with colleagues, friends and family also to
those who maintains a premium life style. The secondary consumer targets are high school,
college and graduate students who need one portable multifunction device, also they want to
have a portable entertainment device.

4.3 Positioning

Edison Using product differentiation, positioning of the Helio Brand as the Slick, versatile,
convenient, value-added device for personal and professional use. The focus is on the
convenience of having one device for communication and entertainment like music, pictures, and
video, and full Internet access. Its outlook and feature should give a feeling of exclusivity.
The Helio will be promoted as both professional and hip.

4.4 IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

Associate the Helio brand name with being convenient, slick & Exclusive by creating messages
to distribute through social media channels and engage consumers to shop online because of the
convenience. To improve the in store shopping experience the Symphony Show rooms will be

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rebranded as Experience center to improve its kind. The desired perception will be that products
are always available and employees are helpful and engaged.
Massive rollout has been planned nationally at all reputable major retailer’s. Massive rollout
Online, Showrooms and in all cell phone providers. For Helio Brand a Separate Website is created
to showcase the products and promote its exclusive designs and features. All Symphony Stores
& the Symphony website will dedicate themselves to the promotion of full product category of
Helio brand. Eye catching displays found at all physical stores featuring the Symphony to make
the product stand out from the pack.
A tie up with GP has been brought to attain the visibility of the new series. New promotion with
GP & Banglalink for discount & bonus have been introduced. In festival season attractive Eid
promotion offer have been declared. Integrate messages about revolutionary communications
and audio/visual experience together have been communicated in all media advertisements.
Advertising has been appeared on a regular basis to maintain general public awareness. A new
TV campaign has been established to maintain the momentum and cater to the target audience.
80 Crore Taka has been allocated for this whole promotion purpose including for Symphony
products.

5.0 THE OUTCOME OF THE CAMPAIGN

To measure the Outcome data for whole year has been surveyed and compared. It is seen that
the promotional campaigns and marketing communication program did bot brought the desired
effects. The sales volume of Helio and other Symphony Brands remain on the decline side for
most of the tenure.

Fig: Survey Data

As the sales was not upto the mark Edison has come up with another 3 new models, but still
the sales was not up the mark till now.

6.0 FAILURE ANALYSIS

While doing failure analysis it can be observed that the following things happen in the past
few years. Mobile handset market has changed in many ways because of the rise of a new
middle class with growing purchasing power that craves status even when they are price
sensitive. Also a host of new competitors entered the market with competitive pricing and more

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aggressive strategies
These two changes have a significant impact on Symphony’s business.
Mobile is an essential product and then when you can afford it is also a status symbol. That’s
why Apple has such die-hard fans all around the world and the maker of iPhone maintains such
dominance in the high-end phone category. And this is exactly where Symphony is facing
growing challenges.
The company has been unsuccessful so far in building a high-end image and die-hard fan base
which put it in challenges of dealing with price-competitive customers who are transitional in
nature and are seldom loyal. Also they could not project any innovation in their product to
appeal to the target customer.
The target customer already have been appealed by giant brands like Huawei or Samsung.
Also they are constantly innovating with their product to deliver the cust omer new experience
in the higher range. Whether Edison’s Helio Series are perceived by the target audience as a
simple extension of the same products offered by Samsung or Huawei Or Oppo, which
hampers the business of Edison in the long run.

7.0 CONCLUSION

Edison will continue to do great business in the next few years – although its market share has
significantly dropped in the past two years – and then its ongoing struggle will deepen and will
reach beyond fixing.
Unfortunately, Symphony has, so far, failed to take advantage of a mobile phone revolution
that it has helped to happen, which many other vertical companies like Symphony, such as
Apple, has managed to take advantage of through a string of innovations and strategic
decisions.
To sustain the business they have to create innovation in their product and put emphasis on
those innovation while creating marketing communication strategies for the Helio Seires.

The End

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