Aircel launched in 1999 and became the leading mobile operator in Tamil Nadu within 18 months. It has since expanded across India and now provides services in all 23 telecom circles. Aircel offers voice, messaging, data and device services both pre-paid and post-paid. As a late entrant, Aircel focused on innovation and offering competitive plans. It targets youth through trendy products and partnerships. Aircel has positioned itself as focused on data and applications to appeal to youth. It uses branding like celebrity ambassador MS Dhoni and tagline "Explore Your World of Possibilities" to build awareness among its target market.

1. Aircel India
Launch
Aircel commenced operations in 1999 and became the leading mobile operator in Tamil Nadu
within 18 months. In December 2003, it launched commercially in Chennai and quickly
established itself as a market leader.
Aircel began outward expansion in 2005 and met with unprecedented success in the Eastern
frontier circles. It emerged as a major telecom service provider in Assam and in the North
Eastern provinces within 18 months of operations. Now, the company is providing services in
all the 23 telecom circles in India including Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Assam, North East, Orissa,
Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Kolkata, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka, Delhi, UP(West), UP(East), Maharashtra & Goa , Mumbai, Haryana , Madhya
Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan.
Product Offerings:
Aircel, a late entrant into the extremely competitive Indian telecom sector, adopted innovation
as its key branding strategy. The company focused on multi-functionality of a mobile phone and
offered fresh networks, simplified tariff plans and good Value Added Services (VAS) to the
subscribers. It offers services which are trendy and are fancied by the youth. Aircel has moved
beyond voice services and dived into the VAS space.
The product and services of Aircel in India may be primarily divided into following categories:
Voice
Messaging
Data
Devices
Aircel Mobile Connect
Now these services can again be categorized into two segments on the basis of realization of
the price from the customer.
Pre-paid
Post-paid
The mobile operator tried to increase its market share by offering competitive tariff plans and
VAS offerings like location-based services & phone banking to attract subscribers in metros.
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2. Competition:
The major telecom players in India are:
Airtel
Vodafone
Aircel
BSNL
Reliance
Idea
Tata Indicom
MTNL
Virgin Mobile
Uninor
Aircel was a late entrant in the Indian market in the telecom sector and it had to offer a good
product with substantial differentiation from the products offered by the competitors in the
market to thrive and succeed.
Understanding the customer:
Aircel has always targeted the youth of India. India is the largest youth market in the world with
half the population falling in the youth category. That offered a vast growth potential as India is
also one of the world’s fastest growing consumer and advertising market.
Aircel has always engaged with the youth in innovative ways offering them a variety of
products and services, be it pocket internet, the Aircel pocket applications, INQ – the first social
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3. mobile, Aircel Unlimited Dialler Tunes etc. Over half of the total population of India comprises
of youth a large percentage of them are using mobile networks. Therefore, targeting the youth
is a strategic move and a profitable way to interact, connect and entertain the youth.
Understanding the environment:
India's telecommunication network is the third largest in the world on the basis of its customer
base and it has one of the lowest tariffs in the world enabled by the hyper-competition in its
market. Major sectors of the Indian telecommunication industry are telephony, internet and
broadcasting. Indian government has always been liberal when it came to the Telecom
industry. Telecom is one of the most developed industries in India. The Telecom business is
regulated by the independent regulatory body called Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI). TRAI was established in 1997 by the government of India. The new Telecom Policy, 1999
makes sure of availability of affordable and effective communications for the citizens.
Branding Positioning:
Position is a process in which a company tries to create an image or an identity of the company
in the minds of the customers.
Aircel has positioned itself on the future of telephony - data play. The services offered
by Aircel are loaded with value-added applications. It offers services that the youth
craves for. Aircel is now working with a lot of content aggregators such as Yahoo and
Makemytrip. They are looking to rope in more partners to help them position better in
the VAS space. Aircel wants to offer a platform for innovation, so, are encouraging new
and out-of-the-box ideas.
The core values of the Aircel brand were Simplicity and Creativity. In 2009, Aircel came
up with innovative advertising and marketing campaigns. The brand communicated
with customers through simple, thoughtful ads. It positioned itself around the tagline,
'Explore Your World of Possibilities', and targeted youth across multiple segments.
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4. Aircel was also associated with the Indian Premier league (IPL), as the
official sponsor of the Chennai Super Kings team. It had initially roped in
Indian Cricket Captain M.S. Dhoni for advertisements and branding. M.S
Dhoni is a youth icon and that’s how Aircel tried to capture the youth
through its brand ambassador.
The Aircel wi fi TVCs recently aired were trendy, exciting, creates excitement regarding
the product which is the ‘need of the hour – Internet on the go’.
Aircel also came up with an ad campaign called ‘Save our Tigers’. This was a drive to
increase the awareness about the decreasing population of the Indian national animal
and thus make its contribution towards social responsibility or CSR.This also gives the
image of being sensitive and concernedto the brand.
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5. Aircel has been developing a lot of innovative and trendy products based on the positioning
of the brand. The ads campaign targeted towards the youth created a lot of buzz among the
youth.
Brand personality:
Brand personality is the way a brand communicates and behaves. It means personifying the
brand, giving it human traits and characteristics to achieve differentiation and create a –
connect or a bond with the customers, something that a customer can identify themselves
with.
These traits are observed in the audio-visual communication of the brand to the target
audience. Let us see a few illustrations of how the brand personality is seen in the TV
Commercials of the brand:
Youthful
M.S. Dhoni, who is considered a youth icon, was chosen as the brand ambassador to
portray the youthfulness in the brand. It shows that the brand is targeted towards the
youth and the products offered are what the young really want and crave for.
Exciting
Again, M.S. Dhoni being the brand ambassador was a strategic move. Dhoni’s batting is
exciting, innovative and consistent and that’s what the brand stands for. The TV ads
clearly portray that the brand stands for innovation and provides exciting products and
provides a consistent and stable network.
Trendy
The products like 3G, internet wi fi are trendy. Internet and connectivity on the go are
the need of the hour. What the trend among the youth is to stay connected to the
Internet 24x7 and that’s what Aircel provides to the customers.
Sensitive
The ‘Save our Tiger’ campaign shows that the brand is sensitive towards the
environment and grave issues in front of us and makes efforts to improve on the
existing conditions.
Brand Identity:
The visible elements of a brand such:
The Logo
Brand name
Tag line
are a few elements that together identify and distinguish the brand in consumer’s mind
form brand identity.
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6. The Logo
The stripes in the Logo stand for Simplicity, Creativity and Trustworthiness whereas the
colours stand for vibrancy and youthfulness.
The Name – Aircel
The name means Air – Cellular which signifies sturdy network and connectivity. Aircel
was the second Telecom provider to have their presence in all the 23 Telecom circles in
India to live up to what their name stands.
Tagline
The tagline for the company is ‘Explore your world of possibilities’ signifies innovation
and creativity which go well with the logo as well as the principles the company is based
on.
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness means the familiarity of the customers towards the products offered by the
brand and its availability. Brand awareness includes both brand recognition and recall.
A brand ambassador as popular and iconic as M.S. Dhoni was chosen to have an impact
on customers mind. He was the T20 world cup winning captain then and now his image
as the most successful captain is also helping the brand after the successful World cup
Campaign in 2011.
TVCs were aired strategically on various TV channels like sports channels when there
were cricket tournaments were being played and other channels during prime time to
improve on brand awareness and recognition.
Ad campaigns on internet websites like youtube.com and other google.com ads were
used along with ads on radio channels and print media like newspapers, magazines
The company also invested heavily on POP marketing such glow sign boards and
danglers and hoardings during the initial ad campaigns to improve brand visibility.
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7. SWOT:
Strengths: Weakness:
1. 5th largest GSM service provider in 1. Profitability is decreasing
India 2. Lack of advertising
2. Network presence in all 23 telecom 3. Low brand visibility
circles in India
3. Subscriber base of over 50 million
4. Market share of 12%
Opportunity: Threats:
1. Fast expanding cellular market 1. A large number of competitors
2. Untapped rural market 2. Saturation point in basic Telephony
3. Latest technology service
4. Value added services 3. Mobile number portability
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