The Power of Nano-sized Innovations

Right from the moment Tata announced the development of the Nano in 2004, there was considerable excitement and anticipation surrounding “the people’s car”. By the time the finished product was ready to hit the market in 2009, Tata needed to re-ignite and increase that energy that surrounded the initial announcement.

As the cheapest car in the world, the Nano was operating on practically non-existent margins. This precluded any expensive traditional advertising campaigns, or extravagant launches.

Brand perception surveys showed that even before launch, the Nano brand had become synonymous with everything small and compact in the mind of the consumer. This helped form the two pillars of the media strategy: compact and topical. A third element, fun, was added to the mix. Any media solution would have to involve these three elements. This led to the development of “Nanovations”.

Nanovations were a series of small, powerful innovations that were designed to bring the Nano experience to life. The Nanovations were applied across all platforms in a variety of ways.

In print, news in brief items in papers were re-branded “Nano News”, mini trivia items were named “Nano Corners”, and celebrated cartoonist R.K Laxman created a special Nano cartoon for India’s largest daily newspaper. On TV, shorter ad breaks – Nano breaks – were created. Brand partnerships also played their part, as the brand tied up with Amul butter, and renamed the smallest packets of butter Nano packs.

Nanovations appeared in 35 print publications and 65 radio and TV stations. In two weeks, Tata received 640,000 test drive booking requests – which resulted in 200,000 sales conversions. Within 24 hours of the campaign launch, 5.4m people had visited the official website. Nanovations would go on to win a Bronze Lion at Cannes, and two bronze awards at the Spikes Asia Awards.