Extensive Marketing Strategy of GAIL – A Comprehensive Case Study

Updated on: Jun 8, 2021
Marketing Strategy Of Gail - Featured Image

  Hey there!

My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from IIDE's online digital marketing courses in India.

Practical assignments, case studies & simulations from Harvard Business Review helped the students from this course present this analysis.

Building on this practical approach, we are now introducing a new dimension for our online digital marketing course learners - the Campus Immersion Experience.

If you find this case study helpful, consider leaving a comment below.

We have previously written a comprehensive case study on the SWOT analysis of GAIL. This time we are back with another article on the marketing strategy of GAIL.

The PNG gas which is coming in our house gas pipeline or the LPG gas which is connected to our stove is produced by GAIL. GAIL – Gas Authority Of India Limited is one of the largest natural gas companies in India. Their consistent efforts and determination to serve people have made them rank 45th in the India 100 2021 ranking of the most valuable and influential brands.   

Another attribute that made GAIL the giant is its marketing efforts. As the world is moving online, the way marketing is done is changing and if you are interested in learning about the newest – check out our  Free MasterClass on Digital Marketing 101 by the CEO and Founder of IIDE, Karan Shah.

In this blog, we will look at the marketing strategy of GAIL, but before begin discussing the marketing strategy of GAIL, let’s look at some of the facts about the company.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

About GAIL

GAIL (India) was created on August 16, 1984, and was previously known as Gas Authority of India Limited. It was established to create gas sector infrastructure to assist the long-term development of the country’s natural gas sector. The headquarters of the company seems to be in New Delhi, India. The Indian government’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas owns it. 

The company’s primary segments are natural gas, liquid hydrocarbons, LPG transmission, petrochemicals, city gas distribution, non-conventional energies such as solar and wind, exploration and production, petrochemicals, GAILTEL, and power generation. 

The country’s natural gas behemoth, GAIL (India) Limited, has been named to Forbes’ 500 lists of the World’s Best Employers 2020. Only 31 Indian businesses were chosen from a pool of 750 from 45 countries, with only nine Indian PSEs cutting and from those nine PSEs, GAIL is in 5th position.

Quick Stats on GAIL
CEO Shri Manoj Jain
CMO Abhinav Pandey
Area Served India
Industry Natural Gas Industry
Market Share/ Revenue 140.10 INR
Vision Be the leader within the natural gas value chain and beyond, with a worldwide presence, creating value for stakeholders with environmental responsibility.
Tagline Tomorrow is yours

 

Marketing Mix of GAIL

A marketing mix is a marketing model that helps a company frame its offerings and steps undertaken to market its offerings. The model is based on the pillars of the 4P’s: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. So let us go through these 4Ps in the coming section.

Product Strategy of GAIL

GAIL is India’s largest state-owned company that sells and processes natural gas. Business segments of the GAIL include Natural Gas, Liquid Hydrocarbon, Liquefied Petroleum Gas Transmission, Petrochemical, City Gas Distribution, Exploration and Production, GAILTEL and Electricity generation.

The Natural Gas segment includes: 

  • Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)
  • Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) 
  • Compressed Natural gas (CNG) and 
  • Piped Natural gas (PNG).

The Indian gas agency produces propane, naphtha, a mixture of hydrogenated C4, pentane, MFO and propylene in the liquid hydrocarbon segment. In urban distribution, it provides CNG for vehicles and PNG for cooking purposes.

These products of GAIL are sold in the fertilizer industry, home industry and trade, automotive and petrochemicals.

 

Price Strategy of GAIL

GAIL follows a competitive pricing strategy due to the presence of various competitors such as Oil India Ltd., Hindustan Oil Exploration Company Ltd., Duke Offshore Ltd., Aban Offshore Ltd etc in the industry.  

The majority of the customers are B2B and Urban Distribution for direct customers is also done at competitive prices.

Place & Distribution Strategy of GAIL

GAIL has six gas treatment plants in Auraiya, Vijaipur, Usar and Gandhar plants for liquefied petroleum gas, one of which is also used for polymer production. It sells LPG to oil marketing companies in the public sector, and other products are directly retailed. 

According to the authorization of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Commission, GAIL has established urban distributions in Meerut, Vadodara, Dewas and Kota. These cities range from MP to Gujarat and from UP to Haryana.

Promotion Strategy of GAIL

GAIL had launched a CSR initiative for an athlete program called GAIL Indian Speedster. The purpose of this promotion was to train young talents. Through this event, GAIL positioned itself as a common ally and expanded its influence in 55 regions. Finally, 9 out of 850 sports participants were selected to receive world-class training and were ready to represent India in the Olympic Games. 

Apart from this program, GAIL has received various awards including:

  • BSC, UK, presents the GAIL with the International Safety Award
  • Wealth creation in manufacturing.

As we have seen the marketing mix of the company, let’s look at the marketing strategy of GAIL.

Marketing Strategy of GAIL

In the marketing strategy of GAIL – GAIL doesn’t actively engage in marketing itself. This is not a typical company that would heavily promote itself on social media or through paid media (PR). What they do is focus on getting their clients the best possible deal on the products they want, and then push them into making a purchase by providing exceptional service.

However, it has undertaken few marketing campaigns to promote the welfare of the earth.

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning 

Segmentation

Gail uses the broadest available segmentation of the target market. They are aiming for all geographical locations, whether they are Tier 1, 2, or 3 cities. In fact, in many cases, there isn’t much targeting or segmentation involved because they are attempting to reach all demographics, geographics, and psychographics of consumers. Gail’s primary segments are natural gas, liquid hydrocarbons, LPG transmission, petrochemicals, city gas distribution, non-conventional energies such as solar and wind, exploration and production, petrochemicals, GAILTEL, and power generation.

Targeting

The company does not produce anything to be sold, they have gas industries throughout India. So the concept of targeting does not apply to Gail.

Positioning

Gail maintains its position in providing high-quality natural gas services. Gail has a long-standing commitment and has consistent efforts and determination to serve people. Sustainability is an integral component of their approach to business and work practices.

Hawa Badlo – A Marketing Campaign of GAIL

Hawa Badlo – A Marketing crusade of GAIL

The ‘ Hawa Badlo ’ crusade shattered the ingrained content ceiling. GAIL India released a four-occasion web series that revolved around its crusade on pollution control and terrain conservation. Each of the four 12 nanosecond occurrences concentrated on issues similar to green energy, education in the terrain, and career choices. 

To acclimatize people to the goods of air pollution, GAIL India launched a crusade in 2016. This was a moderate digital action that has digitally touched 60 million lives. The charm of content marketing is that it gives us real creative freedom and can propose content that applies to the followership.

Bring Back the Blue Skies – A Marketing Campaign of GAIL

#BringBackTheBlueSkies campaign

Hawa Badlo movement is an initiative of GAIL. It released a music video featuring Anmol Parashar and Sarah Hashmi. This music video is an even cooler and more futuristic version of the old “Hawa Badlo” anthem produced by Harshdeep Kaur and Javed Ali, which won the best lyricist award at the ArtistAloud Music Awards.

The music video started a bold campaign #BringBackTheBlueSkies to fight against pollution and educate people on the viciousness of air pollution and its impact on people’s lives.

The music video targeted the masses and young people who were being asked to bring changes in the air through their own efforts. Through this music video and the #BringBackTheBlueSkies campaign, their aim was to inspire the masses and young people to take active measures to deal with air pollution, which is a global killer and change their lifestyles, and use natural-friendly fuels such as natural gas in their daily lives.

Therefore, the “Hawa Badlo” movement is a need and also it supports our government’s Swachh Bharat Mission and its efforts for a natural gas-based economy in many ways.

We looked at the successful campaigns by the company, now let us look at the SWOT analysis of GAIL.

Air Pollution Ka Alarm

Marketing Strategy of GAIL - Campaign 3

GAIL( India) Limited has launched a digital crusade to boost mindfulness about air pollution’s mischievous goods on our diurnal lives and encourage people to partake in prints and vids whenever they come across conditioning that begets air pollution as there’s growing medical substantiation that’s syncopating people’s dates. 

Through GAIL’s Hawa Badlo action, the crusade named “Air Pollution Ka Alarm” has been launched. Through Hawa Badlo’s digital platforms, several posts, rolls, and short stories are being published under this. A brief film on #AirPollutionKaAlarm that was published on Hawa Badlo’s Youtube channel serves as the crusade’s focal point.

Social Media Marketing

GAIL has a massive online presence on social media. They can be found on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. They have way more followers on Facebook compared to Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Facebook has 618,653 followers,
Instagram: has 9,655 followers,
LinkedIn: has 179,709 followers and
Twitter: has 143K followers 

The type of content that GAIL posts on social media platforms are related to sustainability, awards and achievements, yoga day, earth day, environmental, informational, promotional, etc and more.


SEO strategies

Marketing Strategy of GAIL - SEO

According to SEO rankings, having fewer than 500 keywords is terrible, having more than 1000 is good, and having more than 10,000 is outstanding. As you can see, https://www.gailonline.com/ has 34,376 organic keywords, which is a very good number. This indicates that Gail’s digital marketing is getting a reasonable amount of insights.

Additionally, the traffic is known to be over 208,000+ visitors each month, which is very impressive. In order to keep the brand climbing in the Google organic SERP results, Fox corporation still has to improve its SEO techniques.

According to the ubersuggest traffic analyzer, Gail has a very good SEO strategy and an amazing amount of keywords which is excellent. To put it differently, good SEO boosts your online presence. This suggests that as more people visit your website, the more online traffic you will have and therefore the more probable you will be ready to offer your product or service to a broader audience. Also, they have a good number of organic visitors every month which makes their SEO marketing and strategy very strong. 


Economic Strategies 

Gail really does not have any eCommerce strategy because most of their work is onsite. It would be harder to deliver the same level of service to their customers online than physical. 

Gail Limited is a company that is engaged in India’s natural gas industry. E-commerce doesn’t take up much space in the marketing strategy of Gail. Gail does not have an E-commerce portal, however, they do have ample information on their website and various offices of their, through which a potential client can reach out to them for any business-related inquiry.


Influencer marketing 

Gail doesn’t indulge in influencer marketing. Gail as a company doesn’t need Influencer Marketing as most of the transactions are B2B and contract oriented. Only a few of its products have end-to-end marketing.


Mobile Apps

Gail does have a mobile app which provides services to the client. They do have a website through which their potential clients can contact them. Firstly, Gail deals in the gas sector.

Secondly, Gail’s clients are government and many other private companies etc, who wouldn’t choose a mobile app for dealing with Gail. Such big deals are to be done personally. Considering the above factor, they have PNG & CNG, by providing a one-stop solution to all Gas related problems.


Content Marketing Strategies

Gail Limited do use content marketing strategies and they are active in this section by posting different articles on their website. They do say about their achievements on their website and the growth strategy they are going to imply in future.

SWOT Analysis of GAIL

Every company has its own strengths and weakness. A SWOT analysis is a tool that outlines a company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. So, let’s have a look at the SWOT analysis of GAIL:

Strength of GAIL

  • GAIL is the top company in India in the natural gas sector.
  • By building a large network of trunk pipelines, GAIL has shown growth in gas transmission.
  • GAIL has a strong market position which is a competitive advantage for the company.
  • Annual net profits of the company have been improving for the last 2 years.

Weakness of GAIL

  • Ownership is in the hands of the Indian Government so it may affect the company’s operations and may also affect growth opportunities.
  • Promoters are decreasing their shareholding, which may affect the company.

Opportunities of GAIL

  • The strategic purchase of natural gas will help the company meet the growing demand in the domestic market, thereby maintaining and increasing its market share.
  • The R&D project will help the company develop new sources of revenue by introducing new products and services.
  • In recent years, India’s energy consumption has grown faster and is expected to grow further. So there are more opportunities for the company.

Threats of GAIL

  • Drilling natural gas wells involve many risks, including the risk that the company may not encounter natural gas reservoirs with commercial production capacity.
  • The company faces fierce competition in the different market segments it serves, which is a threat to the company.

Now that we have a decent understanding of GAIL, let us look at its competitors.

Competitors of GAIL

There is competition in every sector. GAIL has major competition in the market with several other companies. The top competitors of GAIL are ONGC, IndianOil & Bharat Petroleum. All these companies have a huge market presence.

Let us understand these companies:

  • ONGC

ONGC is one of the top competitors of GAIL. ONGC is known as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, founded in 1956. It is an Indian govt owned crude oil and natural gas company. ONGC generates $848.3M more revenue than GAIL India.

  • Indian Oil

Indian Oil is an Indian govt Oil and gas corporation, founded in 1959. It is owned by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. IndianOil generates 768% of GAIL India’s revenue. Indian Oil is giving tough competition to GAIL.

  • Bharat Petroleum

Bharat Petroleum is among the leading oil and gas companies in India, founded in 1952.  Bharat Petroleum has 6,567 more employees than GAIL. The company is another top competitor of GAIL.

 

Here the case study on the marketing strategy of GAIL comes to an end. Let us go through a summary of this case study on the marketing strategy of GAIL.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

What’s unique in the marketing strategy of GAIL? 

GAIL is one of the top companies responsible for natural gas processing and distribution in India. It’s expertise in various segments, also it’s facing tough competition from other companies. We’ve also seen that GAIL is committed to pursuing operational excellence in everything it does, specializes in continuous efforts to improve the environmental performance of itself and its customers, and can remain sensitive to environmental needs in all actions.

Digital marketing is crucial since it links a company with its clients when they are online and is effective across all sectors. It links businesses with ideal consumers through SEO and PPC on Google, social media marketing, and email marketing. If you would like to learn more and develop skills, check out IIDE’s 4-Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.

Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing. 

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of GAIL has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.

If you like such in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of GAIL check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

Thank you for taking the time to read the marketing strategy of GAIL, and do share your thoughts on this case study marketing strategy of GAIL in the comments section below.

Share post via

Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Posts