Of course, subscribers of other telecom providers too can
activate the Transforming India hello tune for free: you can listen to it
here.
But this post is
not about the Transforming India caller tune.
Caller tune: A Call to the Future
It is about
why the caller tune is a unique and potentially potent communication tool; in the ever-expanding set of tools available to any organization that wants - and needs - to connect and stay connected, ever better, with its stakeholders; and especially so for a Government organization; and even more so for the Government of India!
As a
communication tool, we can find that the caller tune possesses a good combination of very interesting characteristics - some 'obvious' and some not-so-obvious, some unique and some not unique. Together, these features make it a unique tool.
1) The 'Ah Ha' Opportunity
Surprise! The caller tune is
unexpected; it is not something you expect to hear when you call someone (as of today). Even less expected is a particular caller tune.
This is very useful for success in the ongoing World War III - waged by ideas and their proponents. War for
the ever-scarcer attention of their targets to
the ever-more-infinite information that is being made available.
What makes this unique is that
the surprise element is offered by the caller tune tool itself, not the message (content). This is a double-edged sword, as with all surprises: the message can make it or break it. But yes,
by helping capture attention, the tool gives the message a better chance at 'making it'.
2) She's Yours!
Or he! And well, only for those precious seconds. But yes, almost surely for that brief crucial time!
Yes, a caller tune offers the marketer a captive audience, much like that in a cinema hall. A movie-goer would happily endure ads, for the reward of watching the film. So would a caller, in order to talk to the person at the other end. 'Flipping calls' is not (yet) as popular (feasible in fact!) as flipping TV/radio channels, or scrolling laser-fast through timelines.
3) It's Social!
Yes! Fundamentally,
a caller tune is a type of social media! Though perhaps a 'weak' form of it.
It therefore shares some key features of social media, such as:
- Reliance on social proof: you learn your friend has subscribed to the caller tune, you are now a little more likely to be influenced by its message, and a little more likely to subscribe to the tune as well.
- Ability for the communicator to spread the message, while maintaining 'social distance': an important complementary property of the above; as a communicator, you need not bear the burden and possible embarrassment of having to spread the word of your good deeds, you can let others do it for you! Making it more credible and effective as well.
- User-initiated action: Though callers don't create content in the sense users on social networks like Twitter and Facebook do, the caller tune is 'served' in response to a user-initiated action. Which is good. The communicator does not have to intrude into and eat away the user's time, as ads on TV, radio and newspapers do.
4) Not Fully Social either!
At the same time, it is not 'pure-play social'. It differs from 'conventional' social media channels in the following ways:
- The communicator is absent: The starting point for most brands and campaigns in social media is to establish a presence. Not here. The communicating organization need not - and is often not - present on the telecom network. Speaking of the Transforming India caller tune, there is no single mobile number where you can reach "the Government of India". Well, for the purpose of the caller tune, there need not be.
- A different kind of network effect: Most people are more likely to retweet a tweet which has already been retweeted 100 times as opposed to an identical one that has already been retweeted 10 times. A manifestation of the way the network effect plays out in social networks. It seems that caller tunes operate by a different and less visible set of network effects. You call up a friend and find she has a caller tune; how do you know how many already have it? You need to make some additional effort - outside the environment where you encountered it - unlike a tweet/FB post. (Some have been trying to change this dynamics).
So what happens here? The organization pays the telecom service providers for enabling users to subscribe to the tune; publicity is given to the same; users start subscribing; if things work out well, the user base grows and
the caller tune message spreads without any communication at all by the communicating organization in the host ecosystem - i.e., the telecom network.
Given this dynamics behind the diffusion of the message embedded in the caller tune, how should we describe the caller tune tool? How much of it is each of
owned, shared and paid media?
5) Yeh Dil Maange More
We live in a switching society. Deluged in various messages, shifting attention to something else has become a natural instinct. And of course, it is no one but the individual who is charge of his/her attention.
That's where caller tunes stand out. Someone listening to a caller tune would often be cut short by the receiver! For a change,
the caller is at the mercy of the receiver for the allocation of his/her attention, as far as his/her ability to listen to the tune is considered.
I am not aware of the effect of this dynamic on the caller. But I think it would have a salutary effect. What has been left unsaid and unheard can create a void - even if small - in the mind of the caller. Even if what little he/she heard was just not dull (let alone delightful), the person may come searching for the tune some time in future, as
Yeh Dil Maange More.
The caller tune thus allows the communicator to leverage the power of incompleteness - by its very design. Just like many marathon TV serials - where almost every episode ends with a loose end, or a new beginning!
6) A message more truly for him/her
A personalized caller tune can be chosen (based on language, and possibly other parameters as well). This is an advantage over other media, where communication is often un-targeted, and targeting requires you to have separate channels for content in each language.
This is especially important for any organization that needs to reach out to people in diverse cultures and regions, such as the Government of India.
7) Long Live the Short Caller Tune
No, I am not wishing a long life for it. Rather, I think
the caller tune gives the short message a longer active life than most other messages. Think of a tweet, a FB post, a TV programme, a radio show, a newspaper report. It appears to me that a caller tune has a much higher chance of a longer life, online videos and articles being a possible exception.
The Transforming India hello tune for instance, is available for free for a period of 999 days. It has the potential to spread organically without any need for external intervention, for such a long period of time.
What is in it for the Government?
I am of the firm conviction that marketing communication will be most effective when the marketer is as absent as possible from the communication! The same is true of a certain type of Government communication - that which is designed to influence and persuade people to a certain point of view.
That is just a part of the reason why something like a caller tune is a potent tool in the hands of an imaginative government.
Before we say Bye
This post is incomplete, like caller tunes. There are many gaps - I would be grateful if you could help me fill them.
A very good guidepost to the future of Government communication in India, and elsewhere.
Update (on June 1, 2016) to original post
I received a piece of feedback that one important point was missed out. That a caller tune like 'Transforming India' which seeks to influence the audience and promote a certain point of view can be received very negatively by those who are not strong supporters. It could thus lead to their 'tuning out' or even active aggressive behaviour. As highlighted in point 1 above, the message can make it or break it. This should be kept in mind.
