Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel, is the largest telecommunications company in India and operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Airtel offers mobile, fixed line, broadband, and television services under the Airtel brand. Over the years, Airtel has focused on establishing an emotional connection with customers through impactful advertising campaigns featuring top celebrities and music by A.R. Rahman. Airtel's consistent brand messaging across media and emphasis on values rather than just products have helped make it one of the most recognized brands in India.

1. AIRTEL-BRAND ANALYSIS

2. about

3. • Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known
as Airtel, is an Indian telecommunications
company that operates in 20 countries across
South Asia, Africa and the Channel Island
• Airtel is the largest provider of mobile
telephony and second largest provider of fixed
telephony in India, and is also a provider
of broadband and subscription
television services.
• It offers its telecom services under
the Airtel brand and is headed by Sunil Bharti
Mittal.

4. • It is known for being the first mobile phone
company in the world to outsource all of its
business operations except marketing, sales and
finance.
Network(Base Stations,
Microwave Links etc.)
Ericsson, Nokia Siemens
Network and Huawei
Business Support
IBM
Transmission Towers
Bharti Infratech
Ltd.

5. • Airtel also provides Direct-to-
Home (DTH) TV services across
India under the brand
name Airtel digital TV. It started
services on 9 October 2008 and
has about 32.44 million
customers as of August 2010.

6. AIRTEL
COMMUNICATION
CAMPAIGN

7. • Bharti Airtel is the number one telecom service
operator in India and pledges best quality
service to all its customers.
• Apart from advertisements in print and
television media, Airtel has widened its
spectrum to a great extent. The Airtel logo is
clearly noticeable in various cricket matches.
• An interesting feature herein, is also the
advertisements displayed on the customer bills
and other information dispatched to the
consumers.

8. AIRTEL LOGO
LOGOS

9. How much
importance does
a logo hold for a
brand?
A lot, especially, for an
established brand like
Airtel, which has
established itself in the
telephony market.

10. Airtel’s previous logo had
both white and red colors
interchangeably. The
interesting part was that
the word ‘Air’ was written
in black with a white
background while ‘Tel’
was written in white on a
red background.
Sometimes they also
included their slogan
“Express Yourself” with
the logo.

11. But today the logo looks more like
a curved ‘A’ with little bit of
highlighting to indicate what they
call dynamism and the warm and
friendly appeal of Airtel. They
have also said that it represents a
dynamic force of energy which
would bring the management and
customers closer.

12. • If this wasn’t enough, AR Rahman after his debacle with
the CWG tune (though the remix was much better) comes
back with a theme song having a younger and international
feel to it. Their new commercial shows how a couple comes
together due to the Airtel 3G technology which
interestingly will be launched in India only by December.
• Airtel is offering services now in 19 Asian and African
countries where truthfully speaking it has not yet reached
leadership status though it’s there on that path. Through
their rebranding and repositioning exercise, they aim to
achieve an international appeal wherein customers not
only in India but across the world recall their brand. With
these points in mind, they seem to have embarked on this
ambitious journey.

13. Does
the
move
really
work?

14. • It’s a taken that wherever Airtel plans to expand
around the globe, India will be its most important
market.. Therefore the biggest move everyone was
waiting for was their introduction of 3G services in
India.
• But instead Airtel came up with a complete
rebranding exercise including a new logo, TV
commercial and signature tune.
• The previous logo was one of the most recognized
logos in our country. Anyone and everyone be it
from an illiterate person to a CEO knew that was
Airtel. One of the reasons for it reaching somewhat
of a generic brand status was its easily identifiable
logo.

15. TOUCH
TOMORROW
POWER
TO KEEP
IN TOUCH
LIVE
EVERY
MOMENT
DIL JO
CHAHE
PAAS
LAAYE
TAGLINES

16. Power To Keep In Touch
year 1995-1999
Significance: The tagline used in the
brand was made to make the user feel in
control and powerful. This was
positioned at the premium category and
was aimed at the elite class of the
society. The perception of the brand was
created as a lifestyle and an aspirational
brand.
Reason for change: Now, cellular service
operators could drop their rates and
extend their customer base. As the
category developed with prices going
down sharply, Airtel began talking to a
wider spectrum of customers. This gives
birth to the new tagline

17. Significance: Airtel started talking
to new segments by positively
positioning and establishing itself
as a brand that improved the
quality of life. New look and the
feel of the brand indicated the
core values of the brand, i.e.,
leadership, performance and
dynamism.
TOUCH TOMORROW
1999-2001
Reason for Change: Airtel started
to look from a regional level to a
pan-Indian level. Rediffusion
DY&R, which was working for
Airtel took charge of revamping its
brand image. According to the
agency, for Airtel to become the
world leader, it needed to change
its tagline.

18. Live every moment Year-2002-2003
Significance: This was the first time AR
Rahman had agreed to work for a TV
commercial anywhere in the world. The
music from the commercial became the
most downloaded tone in the history of
tele-communications. Tagline denotes that
every Indian lives every emotion of his
life,i.e., happiness, sadness, joy, laughter
with Airtel
Reason For change: The tagline was
changed by Rediffusion dy&R changed the
tagline to revamp the image of Airtel. The
purpose was to create an emotional
connect through advertising.

19. Express Yourself-
Year 2003-2008
•“Express Yourself” was
successfully launched taking the
ownership of the entire field of
communication and strengthening
the emotional bond, Airtel shares
with its customers.
•Airtel is s market leader in cellular
network and they wanted a fresh
and contemporary idea to build a
brand image with which, customers
could identify.

20. • Airtel “Express Yourself” campaign won two
“Silvers” at the prestigious AAAI awards for Brand
Campaign of the Year and Best Advertising Film,
amidst stiff competition from 37 advertising
agencies.
• The campaign added a new meaning to mobile
communication, which helped Airtel to move from
the cellular industry clichés and reached out more
effectively to both the users as well as the
uninitiated.
• Such was the appeal of Airtel Express Yourself
campaign that brand awareness as a result of
advertising grew from 60% to 91% in just 6 months
versus its nearest competitor.

21. • AIRTEL PPTAirtel Express Yourself 1 -
YouTube.flv

22. Dil Jo Chahe Paas
Laaye 2010
•On the occasion of crossing
200 million wireless
subscribers all over the
world, the company
announced to launch their
new logo and a new ringtone.
•Unlike the previous logo, all
the letters here are in small
caps.

23. • AIRTEL PPTA.R Rahman's Airtel New Theme
[Video] - YouTube.flv

25. • Airtel spends crores of rupees every year in
advertisements in all avenues of mass
communication. While radio happens to be
the cheapest means of mass communication,
the most widely mode is that of television.
Though advertising on television is the
costliest proponent among all the modes of
communication, print media is also used
aggressively by Airtel to serve its purposes.
The advertising strategy spreads two basic
purposes for the company, namely:

26. • It creates pervasiveness, allows Airtel to be in
the eyes of the consumers all the time. Even
the audience is not obligated to pay heed to
the advertisements; the high creativity
quotient of Airtel advertisements makes
them virtually impossible to get unnoticed.
Various market experts have rated Airtel Ads
very highly on various parameters.

27. • It also amplifies the message Airtel wants to
send to its consumers. The ads score
reasonably well on the imagery and music. In
fact, the catch tune of Airtel is one of the
most popular jingles in the Indian ad
industry. The genius of the Oscar winning
A.R. Rahman is behind the catchy tune.

28. • The trust factor of Airtel amplifies greatly
with the caliber of its brand ambassadors.
The likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Shah Rukh
Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Vidya
Balan, A.R. Rahman have been the brand
ambassadors of Airtel at some point of time
or the other.

30. • One of the reasons for the lasting effects of
the Airtel ads has been the reinvention of the
content displayed. The recent ad campaign of
“Barriers Break when people Talk” is a highly
emotional ad campaign connecting people.

33. • Har Ek Friend ZarOOri Hota Hai has captured
the imagination of the nation’s youth. It's a
song that's on everyone's lips and status
messages on the social networks. But for
those in adland, the new Airtel TVC 'Har Ek
Friend Zaroori Hota Hai' heralds a new
thought for the brand, and its first piece of
communication created by indie agency
Taproot, which won a slice of the business in
July.

34. • On the new campaign, the Airtel spokesperson
said, "Released on the back of our country wide
launch of 3G services and communication
supporting that, the new campaign targets the
youth with an evergreen theme of Friendship and
its relevance. Friends remain a critical part of
everyone's lives and more so for the youth. At
their age, friends are actually family. And our new
brand campaign captures this evolving trend
among today’s youth in a fresh young ad with a
powerful youth anthem - 'Har Ek Friend Zaroori
Hota Hai'.

35. • Talking about the communication task given by
Airtel, Agnello Dias, co-founder and chief creative
officer, Taproot, said, "It was to create an idea
that retained the core of the Airtel brand and
struck a chord across age groups even while the
execution resonated with the youth.“
• The idea came after long exhaustive sessions with
the Airtel team and meeting youth consumers in
several cities with the airtel team. In fact, the
actual creative platform was arrived at along with
the client in a brainstorm."

36. PUBLIC
RELATIONS
&
PUBLICITY

37. • With the increase in competition, the stake of
credibility of any company is the highest. It is
even more important in the case of the
service industry. A few write-ups by some
renowned newspapers and magazines for or
against a company can drastically influence
the brand equity of that company. As
established by now, Airtel is a maverick of
sorts in product communication. It has made
definitely made great inroads into the avenues
of public relations and publicity.

38. • PR serves a three way objective for Airtel. It
helps in increasing the credibility for Airtel as a
brand. It also creates a certain sense of aura
around the Airtel products, clearly underlining
the fact that they are a cut above the rest. PR
is a potent communication tool to catch some
buyers off-guard who have an aversion in
trusting the credibility of television
commercials.

40. CORPORATE
SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY

41. • To be responsive to the needs of the
consumers
• To continuously improve services—
innovatively and expeditiously
• To be transparent and sensitive in their
dealings with all their stakeholders
• To trust and respect their employees

42. • Airtel Aashaina for underprivileged children at
the Mohali office of Airtel
• Airtel Experience Centre by Express MP to benefit
visually impaired people as well as people from
the deprived sections of the society.
• In Jammu & Kashmir, donated free medicines,
stationary, clothes and other utility items at the
“missionary Of Charity Home For Destitute
• Bharti Foundation- The philanthropic arm of
Bharti Enterprises was set up in 2000 with a
vision to help underprivileged children and the
youth of our country to realize their potential,

43. • Airtel is in a process of setting up of 1000”
Satya Bharti” schools to deliver high quality
education to underprivileged children in the
deepest rural pockets of the country.
• The “CII-Bharti Women Exemplar Award”
• Green Towers P7 program- only telecom
tower company, which has installed almost 3
MWT of solar capacity on their network,
generating more than 5 mn units of electricity
every year.

44. • Energy conservation
• The company has installed solar hot water
generator at its main campus in Gurgaon for
fulfilling the hot water requirement in the
cafeteria. Majority of its facilities across NCR
region are now equipped with LES (Lighting
Energy Savers) which have reduced energy
consumption in the lighting system to the
tune of 10–25%.

45. SALES
PROMOTION

46. • Sales promotion also acts as a source of incentive to all
prospective customers to try the product. It also passes
a passive invitation to people to try the product. Airtel
is in a strategic alliance with various mobile stores in
India, in fact, there are over 500 Airtel stores across
India, the objectivity behind these stores is to increase
the base of potential customers. As an example, with
every new mobile phone bought, an Airtel GSM
connection is gifted to the customer for free. Every day
and across various shopping centres across India, Airtel
organizes various promotional events. All of this is
done to attract to the country’s youth, since youth
comprises of a majority of the Indian population. In
addition to that, there are special plans for friends,
senior citizens and women.

47. Events and
Experiences

48. • Ideally, when an event has an audience
engrossed, heightened levels of emotional
connect is created. Thus, an involved audience
engulfed with relevant events and experiences is
prone to develop a liking for the parameters
associated with the event.
• Airtel is a pioneer of being a part of experiences
and events. KBC, cricket, Indian Idol among many
are examples. Airtel also sponsors various
tournaments and events, which implicitly help
promote the sales of Airtel. The Airtel Delhi Half
Marathon is also an example.

49. CONCLUSION

50. • The Airtel ads, on paper, on TV, or on a
hoarding or anywhere have a distinct
recognition and appeal.
• The gamut of advertisements Airtel has used
seem to have maintained a specific genre
among them. The advertisements have more
often than not talked much more about the
values than the product or the service. Or
maybe the product and the benefit have
always been very intrinsically knit into a value.

51. • Some of these ads have a sense of grandeur
about them while others have family
orientation, relations or innocent love as the
underlying storyline.
• They have never been loud and in a way they
always have been very decent and simple. The
celebrities also have always been suitably
chosen for each of these advertisements
depending upon the image of themselves
thy have created in common public.

52. • To add to all of this a very catchy slogan
always goes along with these ads. Examples
would be,” Express yourself”, “Barriers break
when people talk” and
Pyar ke beech mein kabhi dooriyan na aayen

53. • AIRTEL PPTNew Airtel Ad So Romantic !
sweet voice, awesome ! - YouTube.flv

54. • Airtel, also, has maintained a safe distance
from most of the criticisms associated with
advertising. No misleading, no huge claims, no
gloss-ups.
• Just simple emotional bond with the
consumers- that has been the crux of the
advertising strategy of Airtel over the years.

57. MUSKAN
B.A.(H) JOURNALISM II YEAR
ROLL NO. 312