boAt is a leading consumer electronics brand founded by Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta. Keeping in mind these three goals, the brand is to bring affordable, durable, and fashionable audio products and accessories to the millennials.
These two understood the need and the gap in the Indian market and decided to find a solution to the problem effectively. They found that consumers in the Indian market needed long-lasting and tangle-free earphones that were of good quality and affordable. boAt is one of the leading brands in the earwear category in India. Let’s look at marketing strategies of boAt.
About boAt – You Are Now Plugged Into Nirvana
Marketing Strategy of BoAt
Covid-19 Marketing Strategy of BoAt
About boAt – You Are Now Plugged Into Nirvana
boAt was founded by Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta. Sameer Mehta owns Redwood Interactive, which has computer gaming peripherals under the brand RedGear. Aman Gupta, the CMO who was fascinated by electronics and gadgets, has also worked at JBL for two years. He has completed his MBA (Masters in Business) from the Indian School of Business (ISB).
boAt began its journey as a cable manufacturer and now it has leveraged its brand into selling men’s grooming products, too. boAt has a wide range of product categories, including speakers, wireless earphones, earphones, smartwatches, home audio devices, mobile accessories, and more.
boAt is creating a strong position in the market because it is a homegrown product that was established in 2016. boAt has become a well-known brand now. It is globally the fifth largest wearable brand and India’s number one earwear brand.
The brand has headquarters in Delhi, India, and offices across Delhi and Mumbai. Falls under the Industry of manufacturing computers and electronics. Competitors of boAt include JBL, Realme, OnePlus, Noise, and Mivi.
Marketing Strategy of BoAt
Influencer Marketing
boAt Marketing Strategy – Influencer Marketing
boAt is no stone left unturned regarding influencing people with influencer marketing. BoAt has not struck the deal only with influencers but also with celebrity endorsements, cricketers, content creators, and even stylists.
Celebs like Jacqueline Fernandes, Kartik Aryan, and Kiara Advani, as well as content creators like Prajakta Koli, Harsh Beniwal, and Bhuvan Bam, are on board to promote the products of boAt.
Musicians like Harry Sandhu, Neha Kakkar, and Diljit Dosanjh also endorse their products. Apart from that, cricketers like Shikhar Dhawan, Hardik Pandya, KL Rahul, and Shreyas Iyer have long been endorsing their products.
Digital Marketing
boAt digital marketing strategy is a big player in the company’s marketing strategy. All the marketing strategies employed by boAt, including boat advertisement, are listed below:
Mobile Marketing
Using this multichannel online marketing technique. boAt reaches out to its consumers through its mobile application, emails, and SMS marketing.
Email Marketing
boAt sends personalized messages to its existing and potential customers who agree to share their email to receive updates from them. They send quirky, catchy, and crisp emails. Whether it is updating the audience about a new product, offers, and discounts or communicating their message across.
Personalized Message Strategy
For boAt to succeed, it focused on great customer service to give the best experience with its products. They sent personalized emails and messages, set up a customer care helpline, customized warranty policies, and kept customer needs in mind when designing new products.
boAt also created a special “Do what #floats your boat” page on its website. They ran boAt marketing campaigns to build a strong community, offering customers quick help and guides for using products based on their preferences.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
boAt sails swiftly navigating the digital realm and is an expert at social media marketing. The company has a presence on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Hashtag Marketing with Unique Hashtags
- #whatfloatsyourboat
- #boatheads
- #trebelwithboat
- #levelupwithboat
- #raisethebar
These are just some of the hashtags that have made the rounds on social media platforms. Making the audience chime in on the conversation.
Storytelling Through Social Media Campaigns
Illustrations have been made and shared on Instagram stories under the name boAt adventures to charm and get the attention of comic lovers and the audience.
In a video from the most recent campaign, you always do what floats your boAt, run by the name and hashtag, and do what makes your boat float.
The most recent one that is derived from the idiom do what floats your boat, caters to the gen-z the most and is getting a niche audience of its own to integrate the product with the culture and lives of skaters, street artists, and more.
Another campaign features Kiana Advani, Bani J, Raja Kumari, and other strong women with an upbeat music video with the title “I am a rebel” The range of TRebel has a direct link to the campaign.
Digital campaigns have helped connect the right type of content with the right people in real-time.
Purbalee Dutta
Moment Marketing and Collaborations
IPL
This is a big shot for boAt. Their exclusive collections include earbuds. Made available in all different colors and for the teams of the IPL cricket team. The company seized the moment to grab the attention of cricket fans and persuade them to get the product fit for their favorite teams.
The Marvel Collection
The most recent collection was launched by them or for the Marvel fanbase. Collections for characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Panther. Which features a special collection of earbuds, headphones, and speakers for Marvel fans.
Independence Day
They seized the perfect moment to announce the launch of the following products, Bassheads 100, Bassheads 152, and Rockerz 255 Pro, starting on 27th January 2021. To fulfill the vision of ‘Make in India‘ and manufacture other mobile accessories as well in the country itself. Focusing on the mission of Atma Nirbhar Bharat.
The Masaba Collection
When the web series Masaba Masaba was rolling out, they were quick to grab the opportunity and release an exclusive collection. This included their signature sound with the vibrant style of Masaba Gupta. Also, the fashion theme from the web series will be integrated.
Experiential Marketing
boAt gives an experience to the people that they can’t forget through concerts. Engaging the audiences in two-way communication, the most common elements found in all these partnerships, concerts, and tours were photo booths and nirvana zones. All where the audience was encouraged to participate. The brand shared the stories of its audiences on its official page on Instagram, making an emotional connection and building a loyal fan base. Through this, they generated buzz and gained media coverage.
The Takeover Tour – 2020
Concerts are with musicians like AP Dillon, with the takeover tour. It has so far completed five chapters in different cities around India, including Mumbai, Chandigarh, Goa, Gurugram, and Hyderabad.
The Sunburn Festival in Goa – 2019
Tyga, Yellow Claw, DJ Snake, and Wiz Khalifa were some artists performing at the festival.
boAt has also collaborated with T-Series, the Lakme Fashion Week show, Dolby, and teams from IPL like Kings XI Punjab, Delhi Capitals, and Brut, which is surprising and odd, given the aim to transcend beyond music.
Community-Based Marketing With The #Amboathead
Engaging the community on social media platforms like Instagram and sharing the pictures clicked by them for their boAt products on their stories is a great way of building a sense of community; it also has its hashtag, #Amboathead.
They also have giveaways for their products and contests to keep the audience in the conversation. The hashtag #IAmboAthead has more than 500 posts. The brand is surely building its own tribe. Not only this, the brand has established its own lingo for the community from A-Z to give the clan a sense of belongingness and being a part of it.
Leveraging the Brand Using Consumer Insights
The brand started with the category of sound devices, which includes wireless earbuds, Wireless Headphones, wired headphones, and wireless speakers. Now, the brand is expanding its empire, aiming at men’s personal grooming – misfit, audio wear for fierce women and girls – with TRebel, which sounds like a fashion item as well, and the most recently launched collection of smartwatches.
The brand has now launched a smartwatch and trimmers and continues to innovate its products by launching many limited edition collections. The brand is not what it is today without funding.
Navi Technologies, Fireside Ventures Warburg Pincus invested a hundred million, InnoVen Capital invested 16 crores in 2019, and Sachin Bansal’s BAC acquisitions also pledged 20 crores.
boAt is now the fifth-largest wearable brand globally, and the most recent news on funding involves Qualcomm investing in boAt.
Personalized Marketing
boAt sends out targeted emails, makes short videos that resonate with the consumers, and consistently interacts with their customers on their social media platforms, which increases the consumer’s satisfaction and loyalty towards the brand. They keep track of consumers’ behavior, purchasing habits, preferences, email open rates, and more tactics.
Print and Offline Marketing
Though digital plays a substantial role in the marketing strategy of boAt. Using print mediums is not dead for them. Print ads for different newspapers are still used by boAt and also up with retailing with distributors like Croma. But now, the paradigm is shifting from business to consumers.
Targeting the Right Audience
Affordable yet with great product quality that enhances the user experience, listens to the feedback from their customers. They are also tech disruptors. Constant innovation of products and understanding their audiences are great advantages of boAt. It has something for everyone from millennials, the misfits, Gen-Z, skaters to gamers.
Meme Marketing – Keeping it Relevant With Memes and Language
Having a very deep understanding of its audience, boAt has tagged its products in the internet language of lifestyle choices like sports, travel, WFH (work from home), and fashion.
Portrayal as a Lifestyle Product
Right from the start, boAt as a brand has been portrayed as a lifestyle brand. So much so that the word “lifestyle” is followed on their website. And not as a brand that manufactures computers and electronics, which it is. To occupy the space in the consumer’s mindset, the products of boAt are something that we use daily and also make a fashion statement. The models at the Lakme Fashion Week walked on the ramp wearing boAt’s products when boAt collaborated with them.
Vivek Dev Jacob
Covid-19 Marketing Strategy of BoAt
The following changes were seen in the marketing strategy of boAt company during the pandemic:
Fixing the Core of SEO
The brand focused on SEO to stand out from the clutter, using this tactic for better reach in the digital space.
Giving Value to the Consumer
They focus not only on the brand but also on what consumers look for in a product. For example, there is always some quality that the consumer is looking for when using a product to satisfy their need or wants. boAt makes it a priority to identify that.
Data and Research
Keeping a close eye on customer feedback and tracking repetitive patterns, if any, were found to evaluate the overall effectiveness of their products.
Using YouTube
They created short videos on YouTube with display ads that were short, crisp, and on-point. Which also included video sequencing with display ads.
Fulfilling the Promise of the Product
Their products deliver the value that the consumer is looking for.
Data-Oriented Approach
Building the personas of their target audience and narrowing it down to every trait helps them know who exactly they are targeting.
Storytelling
Showing the brand as part of the story gets their audience emotionally invested and feel like a part of their growing tribe.
Keeping a Check on KPIs
Keeping the brand alive in the consumer’s mind and retaining them. And leveraging the brand and using consumer insights.
Sarika Anand
Conclusion
boAt, in short, has been leveraging its brand with creative, crisp, short, and smart marketing campaigns. Their marketing strategy is very smart. Since most marketing plans include selling their products online. They have taken advantage of the opportunity to connect with their audience at the right time and listen to their feedback, which is made possible through digital platforms.
Another major advantage includes making the target audience remember the brand by establishing a unique position in their minds by giving them something valuable and experienced with the help of experiential marketing.
Moreover, they have employed different tactics during the pandemic to stay relevant in the market and have come out even stronger. Being the leading audio wearable brand in India.
FAQs
What is boAt?
boAt is a consumer electronics company that specialises in the manufacturing of audio and wearables. Incorporated on November 1, 2013, by Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta, boAt is an India-based company with headquarters in Delhi.
What is mission and vision of boAt company?
The boAt was founded with the “sole aim of bringing affordable, durable, and more importantly, ‘fashionable’ audio products and accessories to millennials”, which can be termed the mission and vision of Boat company.
What are the marketing strategies employed by boAt?
Email marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and brand collaborations are some of the marketing strategies employed by boAt.
Is boAt a profitable company?
boAt is a leading brand in the earwear category that generated a loss of Rs 129.4 crore in FY23.
How are Boat campaigns?
Being a market leader in the audio and wearables segment, Boat has surely seen some unique and effective campaigns to date. The company recently launched the campaign to launch the women-only audio lifestyle segment, which started with Raja Kumari and featured Kiara Advani Bani J and others.
Is boAt an Indian company?
Yes, boAt is an Indian consumer electronics brand that is leading in the earwear category.
