Airtel as a brand enjoys top of the mind recall despite operating in a sector where there is not much room for differentiation in services. The quality of its services, coupled with successful brand building, advertising and promotion exercises have been the critical factors for its success. Airtel has been through various phases of development in its journey and they have been accompanied quite suitably by its advertising. In 2002, Airtel shifted focus from being a “technology” brand to a “communication” brand and it was well carried forward by the signature jingle by A.R.Rahman and taglines “Express Yourself”. In 2008, Airtel ventured into Value-added-services and it was supported by “Barriers break when people talk” campaign. In 2011, Airtel put a bet on Data Services to be the next drivers for telecommunication companies and supplemented with it the “Hare ek friend zaroori hota hain” campaign which went viral too. It was followed by another mega campaign “Jo tera hain wo mera hain” in 2012 which was a follow up of its previous campaign of 2011 and capitalized on the trend of the popularity of mobile internet and data sharing among the youth.
Airtel
had gone through a major rebranding exercise in 2010 as it began expanding into
other countries. It removed its previous Airtel logo and designed a new logo
with a lowercase “a” in the Airtel name. It needs to be seen what the strategy
of Airtel would be for India and the world in the near future. We hope we get
to witness another set of outstanding and hummable campaigns and hope Airtel
will “Express Itself” and “Break Barriers” and bring the world even closer
