I am thinking about Zahi, are you?

Some say I think too much, I should stop wondering, and the world will be better off. This unconventional write-up was to be about customer service as it should as the first blog entry of mine for Bangladesh Corp. Blog, but why did I turn on my tv to watch this wonderful ad of Kumar Biswajit, I don’t know. Yes, this another Disturbed Mind production about Warid is none other than Warid’s new TVC of Zahi postpaid package, where Warid quite successfully claims (with a truly reliable celebrity) its voice data to have crystal clear clarity, by which a professional artist can record his newly composed track remotely. Sounds very realistic, because it only takes 112-128 kbps voice data transfer speed in popular compression formats to achieve a near CD quality clarity, but GSM voice data transfer is usually 56 kbps max, and I cannot really believe with Warid’s latest network over than 56 kbps voice data transfer is possible. Maybe Warid will say - nah, we were really talking about EDGE, an evolution in GSM which can transfer 346 kbps data theoretically.

So this ad was thematic like many, one ad I really admire is from Garnier, where fructis shampoo nourished hair can be used to pull out a solid concrete block (oh! They were talking about rock-shaking confidence –that you cannot measure, duh!), or you can also take the famous Axe communication examples. So by this Warid actually wanted to mean that their network for Zahi customers offers a better voice/sound quality than the other mobile operators. First question, are the postpaid Zahi and prepaid zem customers handled by different networks and so has Warid set up two different networks for two different customers? I don't really think the claim is true for only the post-paid customers, in that case, warid messed up a bit.

And number two – the difficult one, will the loyal consumers like off-net postpaid users will switch to Zahi postpaid just because the voice is clear? (I thought postpaid customers might look for more value added service rather than basic telephony). If not, is Warid trying to convert it’s prepaid customers saying that – look zem’s voice is horrible, but Zahi is singing like an American idol. Isn’t it derogatory, even for the basic voice service, Warid is differentiating its prepaid and postpaid customers - whereas, the postpaid customers are usually differentiated by offering low rates and extra value added services. I have no clue where zahi is trying to go with the message in this tvc.

Finally, I really found the ad to be a superior addition in Warid’s recent campaigns –the starting was great, Mr. Bishwajit showed his mastery as model in ad once again. However the concept was not well-thought-out, the key message (voice clarity) is not very strong to buy a connection worth 750 taka (the message may be reliable but not worthy enough to make people switch to or pick up new connection). Voice clarity is one issue that will come in any insight generation for mobile users, its not unique to postpaid customers, guess Warid has to dig deeper to find the proper position of Zahi for current off-net postpaid and to-be-postpaid customers.

One last note, Zahi claims in website “Go Zahi today and get ready to experience a world of connectivity like you have never experienced before!” – I wonder why Warid didn’t work on that. Wondering!