Sunday, February 12, 2012

Advertisements - Brands to have stayed connected in India - Airtel

Advertisements - Brands to have stayed connected in India

Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel, is an Indian telecommunications company that operates in 20 countries across South Asia and Africa. It operates a GSM network in all countries, providing 2G or 3G services depending upon the country of operation.

Sunil Bharti Mittal founded the Bharti Group in 1983. 90's saw the incorporating of its cellular operations in India and post 2000 after rebranding the cellular phone operations under the single Airtel brand, there was no stopping and today, Airtel is the largest cellular service provider in India and fifth largest in the world.

In 2002, Airtel signed on music composer A R Rahman and launched the Live Every Moment campaign. Rahman's signature tune for Airtel spread like a fire and was perhaps one of the most downloaded ring tone in the history of telecommunications. This remains as one of the high points in Airtel's marketing campaign till date.


In 2004, Airtel launched the campaign Express yourself, to connect at a deeper level with the Indian audience and help create a long-term platform for the brand. This won 2 Silvers at the prestigious Advertising Agencies Association Of India (AAAI) awards for Brand Campaign of the Year and Best Advertising Film.








Then came a series of advertisements with its 2 brand ambassadors - Shahrukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar, the most popular and inspirational icons in the country. Sachin was dropped as a brand ambassador in 2006. Later a number of celebrities were signed on including Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, R Madhavan, Vidya Balan etc and they did generate a few sparks with their advertisements but none of them proved to be a 'Value for Money' as compared to SRK.

In 2007/08, Airtel launched a new campaign Barriers Break When People Talk. With this the company had shifted away from its usual Express Yourself brand premise, which had been a part of it for a couple of years. Instead, the brand had dug a bit deeper and questioned the whole process and the need for communication itself.


Later in 2008, Airtel launched an inspirational advertisement followed by SRK's Together good things happen campaign in 2009.




By the end of 2010, Airtel decided to change its logo with a new one and the signature Airtel tune with a new one by music composer A R Rahman. Below are a series of ads launched under this new campaign which also marked the promotion of the newly acquired 3G services.




In the last couple of years, Airtel's marketing campaigns haven't been a success story. But the launch of the current campaign Har Ek friend Zaroori Hota Hai, has brought Airtel back to limelight epecially after a failed brand revamp strategy in 2010. Earlier people had limited friends, now all thanks to technology, it is possible to create an infinite variety. This was the concept behind this successful friendship campaign.


Airtel's current campaign Airtel Money - Baat sirf paiso ki nahi hai is the launch of its new mobile wallet service. It's the country’s first mobile wallet service by an operator.




Airtel as a brand continues to provide interesting marketing campaigns and is one of the famous ones in the country.

No comments:

Post a Comment