Innovation is the key factor in our competitive advantage: Will Yang, Oppo

Oppo Camera Phones is bullish on India this festive season. The brand is gearing up to launch its latest phone in the country – the Oppo F3 Diwali Limited Edition phone, which will be available from September 29 on e-commerce partner Amazon exclusively and in Oppo offline stores across India. The launch is supported by a new campaign that went live from September 26. The campaign has been created by independent director Sam Bombay and has been produced by Allan Daouza and Fusion Films.

The campaign, which features Team India cricketers – Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and R Ashwin, along with Bollywood actor Elli Avram, showcases the festivities that surround Diwali and the importance of the perfect Diwali gift which helps people capture their greatest memories. 

As per a Counterpoint report, the Oppo F3 Selfie Expert phone topped the chart by capturing 24.2 per cent of the sales amongst top sellers. 

Besides focusing on high-quality products, Oppo’s success can also be attributed to the fact that they understand consumer demands and take feedback seriously. In the Indian market, Oppo has been expanding its presence through Point of Sales and after sales service centres for giving its consumers a better and customised experience. 

Successful marketing campaigns targeted towards reaching out to the young consumers through platforms like Bollywood, Cricket and Entertainment have also driven the brand to gain higher recognition in the Indian market. Oppo is now also looking at fashion as an important platform to engage the consumers with a taste for the finer things in life. With this, the brand is preparing the ground to introduce its high-end phones in the Indian market. 

Will Yang, Brand Director, Oppo, speaks with Adgully on the brand’s focus areas in India, festive season plans, marketing strategy and the factors that have contributed to Oppo’s success in India. Excerpts: 

The latest ad campaign is quite long, are you also planning to release it on television?
We will have the 6-minute version of the ad for digital media and have shorter 15-second and 30-second edits for television. We would probably also put it on YouTube so that if you don’t skip the ad, you can see the entire 6-minute ad. 

How do you think it matches with the current product launch?
Firstly, it’s about Diwali as it is the most important festival in India and so we thought why not do something about how people celebrate this unique festival in India. We adapted the traditional story of Goddess Laxmi and narrated it is a new way in a fairy tale format. Besides, if you see the things that we have done before, we found that we lacked campaigns where we engage people emotionally. Emotional and mental connections are very important for local customs. 

Keeping the product profile in mind as well as the price point, do you think it matches with the audience?
There are different customers in the market with different demands, while some want good operation space, some want a good selfie camera and some want a longer battery life. There are a lot of demands from the market, but we at Oppo mainly focus on the selfie camera, battery and design. Though we are targeting everyone for our Oppo phones, we don’t want to be mass. That’s why we are associating with fashion and visionary young designers like Masaba Gupta as through fashion, we want to connect with consumers with a finer taste in life. So, we are preparing the ground for eventually launching our high-end phones in the Indian market. 

Could you tell us about your e-commerce strategy?
If you had asked me this question two years back, when we were purely an offline brand, my answer would have been different. But the market is changing and there are a lot of competitors entering the Indian market. E-commerce’s growth has been spectacular in India and has exceeded our expectations. Now we have realised that if we are not present on e-commerce platforms, we are going to make loss, but we have continued with our presence in the retail sector as well. 

What are brands only on the e-commerce platform missing out?
As we are majorly an offline brand, we have to make huge investments on various channels because we have to explore a lot of dealers and distributers, set up stores, and keep point of sales materials. That is why I think this is also our strength. So, even when we go back to the starting point, we need to focus on the offline market because as a camera phone that is valued for its specifications, people want to get a touch and feel of the phone and have a direct interaction with it. We, therefore, focus on long-term relationships – be it offline, online or through sponsorships – because we have already invested so much in the market and are here to stay. 

What are your expectations from the festive season this year – in terms of sales and revenues?
This limited edition phone is definitely not for sales purpose, but to get close to our target audience, because the fashion savvy youth now need some unique colours in hand and maybe to give away the best Diwali gifts to their close ones and so, this is for that target audience only and not for any kind of mass sales. 

As part of our Diwali promotions, we have dropped the price of the Oppo F3 phone, which gives it some strong competitive specifications and audience. We are hoping for strong sales as Diwali sees a spurt in purchases. 

What are the spends on marketing and advertising that you have allocated for Oppo’s festive season push?
The festive campaign is on ‘Bigg Boss 11’ and many other platforms as well. In the past we’ve had associations with ‘Dance+’ and earlier seasons of ‘Bigg Boss’. The combination will be GECs, movies, and cricket as there is a big cricket match coming up, and last and most importantly, digital. 

Where have you seen maximum growth coming from – Urban markets or the Tier 2 & 3 markets? Which of these markets constitute your key focus area?
Our reach in all markets is very deep and we have already reached Tier 4 markets as well as we believe that customers in these markets need a chance to experience the phone. Even in rural places you will find exclusive Oppo exclusive shops or in other dealers’ shops. The reach is wide and we are not limited to just Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets. 

How much of an advantage do technological advances offer mobile brands, since technology is replicated fast by competitor brands and the obsolescence factor is high as well?
I think innovation is the key factor when we talk about replication; we are the first brand to be declared as the ‘selfie expert’ or to come out with selfie-centric phones in India, and there have been a lot of followers as well. The technology used in the Oppo F3 Red phone and the dual selfie camera is not so simple. Though sooner or later other brands will catch up, but if we are the first ones to achieve and innovate, there will be a huge market for us. 

What are the factors that have helped you surge ahead of the competition?
We follow the ‘Glocal’ strategy. We have done extensive research for the product features on our phones, how customers use the phones, media behaviour, what kind of apps one is using and much more. We run this research internally and very frequently. The key to gaining over our competition is to be able to create clear distinctions for our phones over competitor brands, the way we have localised our phones, having a greater understanding of our TG. That is something that you have to always think about and conduct a research on.