Now, ad jingles as caller tunes on your mobile

Durgesh Gupta - Televisionpoint.com | Bangalore
Call any employee of Pantaloon Retail and you will hear the voice of a child reciting the 'Merry Christmas' to you, which is from their promotional jingle of the Christmas and New Year campaign. The company gets all their corporate connections from Reliance and every time a new campaign goes on air, the jingle is also updated across board.

Companies have begun putting their ad jingles as caller tunes when you call employees as an extension of their branding activity. Kingfisher Airlines, Spice Jet, Hyundai and ITC hotels are said to be among 250 odd companies that have signed up for this.

About 50 of these companies are headquartered in Bangalore. Companies are looking at promoting their latest products and offers, and telecom operators say these are well accepted by callers. If you call Vodafone or Airtel, you will hear their new offerings.

"Recently an automobile company signed up for hello tunes, and opted for two tunes that will be used alternatively. Companies can select up to four tunes — two corporate and two personal, so that each time an employee gets a call, the caller will hear a different tone. The concept is nascent, so is not a major revenue earner yet for service providers. But it's growing." says Venkatesh V, CEO, mobile services, Bharti Airtel, Karnataka.

"We are on the verge of finalising tones for companies in the automobile, manufacturing, hotel and IT industries," says Sanjeev Khera, COO, Tata Teleservices, Karnataka.

At the UB group, however, the tone is played to serve a different purpose. "We have used a corporate tune signifying the company's vision used for employees across the board, which works as a motivating factor," says Shefali Kotnala, general manager, marketing services, United Spirits.

During the IPL matches, the tone was changed to the Royal Challenger's song with the aim to develop team spirit. But the mobile is a personal device and not all employees are happy about playing a company ringtone.

"HR heads are requesting a time slot of 9 am to 5 pm to play the tunes and then change it after the day ends. We are seeing an increase in usage of 15% month-on-month for hello tunes," says Venkatesh.

At Pantaloon Retail, employees have the liberty to go to their nearest Reliance Web World and change the tone. "But very few actually bother," says Atul Takle, head of corporate communications at Pantaloon Retail.