Brands
Digital is the backbone of Tata Motors’ IPL 2019 marketing mix
MUMBAI: It is the second year of association between Tata Motors and the Indian Premier League (IPL), and the former is pretty positive that the season is going to help it in boosting the recognisability of its new launch, ‘Harrier’. This premium flagship SUV from the Tata Motors’ portfolio was announced as the official partner of the game recently.
Talking to Indiantelevision.com at the event, Tata Motors head – marketing, passenger vehicles business unit Vivek Srivatsa shared that it is extremely difficult to get a wider penetration into a diverse country like India, especially in the smaller towns but platforms like cricket play a great role in taking the brands to each household. He said, “What we found very endearing and attractive about IPL is how it has a national fervour as well as a regional flavour. Thanks to the broadcaster Star’s initiative, it has got transmission in all the four Southern languages, Marathi, and Bengali as well. I think it has allowed us to go very deep into and achieve a great level of relevant reach. It also creates good awareness and this it has helped the brand really well.”
He added, “We have already got good momentum and with IPL we would like to take it even further. With Harrier, fortunately, the customer response has been extremely strong since its launch in December. With IPL, we want to only improve it.”
Definitely, IPL has a strong viewership and it draws a lot of interest from each section of the society. Thereby, Tata Motors has a strong planning perspective as to how to leverage this platform in the best manner possible. For Srivatsa, digital is at the core of each marketing strategy, “For Harrier, we already have an extremely strong Instagram handle. It already has 25,000 organic followers. Thus, you will see a lot of Instagram activity happening this season.”
He shared, “Digital will provide the backbone for every activity that we do. There is ‘Super Striker’ and then there is ‘Fan Catch’, the two strong properties already established by us in the last season, which we will continue to grow this time as well. With Super Striker, every match has a player who is awarded a very unique award scale model of the car. I see that the players get excited and they go on their own social media handles to celebrate. It has become good content for us. Also, there are almost 400-500 sixes that are hit during the IPL. Now, every time a sixer is hit, people start looking out for who will catch the ball and win the ‘Fan Catch’. For us, this means a brand recall of 600 times during a season.”
Apart from this, Tata Motors is also planning to give the cricket fans an online virtual reality cricket game experience. “This will probably be in our showrooms and a few malls. I have already tested the game and it is fantastic. It feels like playing a real match,” said Srivatsa.
He added that there will also be an online ‘choose your dream team’ kind of championship from last year. Since the IPL trophy tour will be covering two cities-Bengaluru and Delhi, it will also be promoted heavily on digital platforms.
Brands
Uber launches hotel bookings feature in partnership with Expedia
From hotel bookings to room service at your door, the ride-hailing giant is making its boldest push yet into everyday life
CALIFORNIA: Uber is done being just a taxi app. At its annual GO-GET product event, the world’s leading mobility and delivery platform unveiled a sweeping set of new features designed to plant itself at the centre of how people travel, eat and shop, hotel bookings included.
The headline move is a partnership with Expedia Group that lets Uber users in the United States book hotels directly within the Uber app, with access to a catalogue that will eventually grow to more than 700,000 properties worldwide. Uber One members get 10 per cent back in Uber One credits on all hotel bookings and savings of at least 20 per cent on a rolling list of more than 10,000 hotels globally. Vacation rentals from Vrbo, Expedia Group’s home-rental brand, will be added later this year. The partnership is expected to expand beyond the United States. From June, Uber rides will also be integrated directly into the Expedia app, with push notifications sent to travellers ahead of hotel check-in to book discounted Uber rides for the duration of their stay.
Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Uber, framed the expansion in terms of the modern condition. “Uber is becoming an app for everything, helping people go, get, and now travel all in one place,” he said. “We’re all living through a moment of real cognitive overload: too many apps, too many decisions, too much noise. At the end of the day, our job is to help people reclaim their time, spending less of it managing the logistics of life and more of it actually living.”
Ariane Gorin, chief executive of Expedia Group, struck a similarly ambitious note. “Travel should feel effortless, and this partnership gets us one step closer to offering a seamless traveller experience,” she said. “By connecting our two-sided marketplace with Uber, we’re bringing Uber rides directly into the Expedia app and Expedia Group’s lodging inventory into the Uber app through our Rapid API technology. Together, we’re helping travellers spend less time planning and more time enjoying the journey.”
Beyond hotels, the product announcements come thick and fast. Travel Mode, available within both the Uber and Uber Eats apps, offers curated recommendations on local favourites, tourist destinations, OpenTable restaurant reservations and on-demand delivery to hotel rooms. Uber One International means the membership programme now works globally, allowing members to earn credits on rides abroad that can be redeemed once back home. A new Shop for Me feature lets users request items from any store, even those not listed on the app. Eats for the Way allows riders in select cities booking an Uber Black or Uber Black SUV to have a drink or snack waiting for them in the car. Voice Bookings, powered by artificial intelligence, lets users book a ride conversationally, without touching their phone. And a redesigned One Search bar consolidates results for places, food and items across the entire Uber platform in a single query.
Uber has now logged more than 72 billion trips since it launched in 2010. The question it is now answering is what comes after the ride. The answer, apparently, is everything else. Whether users want a hotel in Paris, a coffee in the back of a car or a snake plant from the local garden centre, Uber would very much like to be the one to provide it. The app economy’s land grab has a new front-runner.
NOTE: The image used is AI generated and only for representational purposes.
