It was my mom’s birthday and I was looking for the perfect gift. I went on a journey with her down memory lane thinking what would be the best gift for her. She had often told me she was an avid reader listening to timeless classics on the radio late into the night.

But I never saw that side of her. I guess marriage, children, and yes, my father, who couldn’t bear her attention anywhere else, led to both that kind of music and book reading hobbies being locked away for good.

But today, it was different. With the passing away of my father, she suddenly had time and was killing it away just by watching those soap operas she always hated. I guess she was trying to adjust.  And this is when with all the emotion inside, I found her the perfect gift, Saregama Carvaan. To understand why this, I would make you watch this video, and you will understand the rest.

You might be thinking that how this is all about strategies. Emotion is one of the strongest strategies. You connect with the heart, and the heart does the rest for you. In management, these are emotional appeals. To tell you the truth, I remember these emotional ones all the more dearly. 

So other than the advertisements let’s see how something known as Niche Market Strategy makes the CARVAAN such a runaway success. Let’s first understand the basics.

What is a Niche Marketing Strategy?

A Niche in general means a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service. A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. Hence a Niche Marketing strategy is aimed at advertising the marketing efforts towards a very specialized and targeted audience that has unique needs. The entire product range, price range and features are designed in consideration of that niche market.

How Carvaan Succeeded through this strategy?

Niche Target Audience –

At a time when all the new music apps in the market were competing for the attention of the music-loving youth, Saregama saw an opportunity in the older generation who everyone had forgotten, a generation still in love with the old music and the simpler technologies of yesteryears.

They were people who didn’t like technology, neither in the phones nor in their music systems. These people loved the radio but didn’t have access to it anymore with old transistors long gone.

The OLD but RELEVANT Design –

The Transistors of the old-time became the source of design for the CARVAAN. The shape and buttons all were heavily inspired by the design of the old transistor radio. The tuner button was placed at the same exact place with almost the same functionality in the CARVAAN as it used to be in the old era radios. Hence Carvaan felt all the more familiar to the people from the older generation.

Value Added Features for people from all generations –

CARVAAN not only had features for the older generation like the FM radio, but it also had features of USB, Bluetooth as it wanted to keep itself an attractive option for the young generation as well. The young generation, the people who would also gift the same to their older loved ones.

Special Content –

The CARVAAN had everything the music lover would associate with. Not only has it 5000 songs chosen based on data collected by SAREGAMA through its decades of music success, but it also has something that was loved by its niche audience a lot (as part of its niche marketing strategy). That content was the presence of the famous radio show.

Yes, Ameen Sayani, the voice of radio for decades in India, found himself a part of this package. Such carefully crafted strategies made it an attractive choice for music enthusiasts.

Emotional Market Positioning –

Saregama Carvaan is perfectly positioned in terms of pricing. Firstly people don’t usually consider pricing when they are buying a gift out of love for their parents or grandparents. Secondly, even if they do look at the price, a nominal price of ~INR 6000 is not something that would bother a lot of gift-givers.

Basically, Saregama Carvaan took the logic out of the purchase and conveyed that the gift meant pure love. Every advertisement highlighted the same essence which hit home with the buyers of this ‘PERFECT GIFT.’

Product Diversification to be more inclusive –

Saregama, in a perfect masterstroke, has expanded the CARVAAN product portfolio. They have added everything from local languages eg. CARVAAN Tamil to CARVAAN Kidz to CARVAAN bhakti and even a CARVAAN Go. This diversification of products has provided Saregama with an opportunity to double on the CARVAAN success by being more inclusive.


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Author

Harsh Tuli is a strategy enthusiast who teaches and is being taught (pursuing a doctorate in strategy) at the same time. With a wide array of work experience ranging from project management to research analyst to now teaching post graduate students he has had an adventurous work stint. He loves to write, learn and read.

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