Presented By : Ankur Sharma  Nishant  Sumit Chauhan Vivek Gupta

Entered telecom business in 1985 & telecommunication in 1990

First company to install second Mobile switching centre

Won Techies Award for four consecutive years(1997-2002)

Launch cellular service in Delhi in 1992

The First in Asia to deploy the multi band feature in a wireless network for efficient usage of spectrum.

The First to deploy Voice Quality Enhancers to improve voice quality and acoustics.

Acquired Skycell (TN),JT Mobile(AP & Karnataka), Spice Cell(WB) in 2000 to expand business

The First telecom company in the world to receive the ISO 9001:2000 certification from British Standards Institute

Sunil Bharti Mittal laid the foundations of the New Delhi based Bharti group in 1970s with a small bicycle part business

1985 Bharti group entered the telecom business by establishing Bharti Telecom Ltd. and entered into technical collaboration with Siemens AG Germany for manufacturing electronic pushbutton telephones.

Launched cellular service in Delhi in 1992, started offering post-paid service from Nov,1995

Started offering VAS such as Smart mail, Fax, Call hold, Call waiting etc. and e-commerce portals to facilitate consumers.

In the initial days due to high tariff rates cellular players had to impose high call charges on their customers and the handsets were costly.

Naturally, they targeted the elite, up market professionals and entrepreneurs as customers . Airtel was positioned as an aspirational and lifestyle brand .

It was pitched not merely as a mobile service, but as something that gave consumer a badge value. The Brand was developed to connote leadership in network, innovations, offerings and services.

The taglines like "Airtel celebrates the spirit of leadership" and "The first choice of the corporate leaders" emphasized that stance.

The Leadership campaign was reportedly successful and resulted in a marginal improvement in Airtel performance.

Govt. reduced the tariffs and taxes which led to the emergence of huge customer base.

A brand was created that not only had qualities like Leadership, Performance, Dynamism but also with supportive values like courtesy, politeness and efficiency.

Other players also started imitating strategies followed by Airtel, by offering same type of schemes and facilities

During late 1990s many national and international players started entering into the Indian telecom market

In early 2000 it was observed through market surveys that the concept of leadership was undergoing a transformation resulting in it being a moderate success. Hence Bharti decided to humanize the brand Airtel to gain competitive advantage. In august 2000 Bharti launched its new Touch Tomorrow campaign which aimed at strengthening its relationship with its customers and make the brand softer to cater a wide variety of people across the society. The Company adopted a three-tier brand architecture to expanded its 'Touch Point network

Tier-I
Airtel

 Special features like music download

facility, SMS, permanent GPRS was introduced at a affordable price

Basic Telephony

Tier-II
National Long distance Service Broadband service Mobile Service

Tier-III
Free net Long distance Tango-Internet mobile

 In 2002, Airtel again repositioned its brand with new tagline Live Every Moment and changed its logo to create a brand identity that had a younger international look and feel.  Airtel also replaced its three-tier brand architecture and adopted a two-tier brand architecture where all wireless products were placed under Airtel brand  Airtel logo after repositioning to Live Every Moment campaign

Rationale In telecom industry people live a brand 24X7 so the possibilities of being tired by a continuous campaign is very high Brand restructuring helps the company to broaden its customer base by reaching more people and offering new services Success Airtel is the most recognizable brand in Indian operator space, with 30.8% of respondents able to identify it as a mobile brand unaided A member of Forbes Asian Fabulous 50 Of 10 million new subscriber sign up every month one in every 4 sign up with Airtel, not only to make calls but also to access the Web, download cricket scores and send billions of text messages

Problem

Solution

Lacking on emotional and human touch in leadership campaign

y To expand market and attract new

customers, relationship with customers is needed, more emotional touch is required.

y Keeping in mind the limited

Launch of internet-interface service called tango.

infrastructure and less technology friendly customers the launch of tango should have been delayed
y Better marketing strategy

Frequent shifts of campaign

Recommendation
Strategy o More focus on emotional angle to differentiate the brand o Airtel was the first cellular service provider to start customer centers (Airtel connects), thus setting a trend of effective and responsive CRM system & it should be maintained. o Innovative and low priced schemes for attracting mass o Low-priced and Youth oriented schemes (e.g. Campus pack, Student pack) are to be implemented more effectively. oKeeping the competition low by strategic alliances and acquisitions. o Aggressive rural market penetration using existing infrastructure and by implementing innovative & focused schemes. oPromotion in regional languages to tap rural market.

Technical o Widening of the network coverage area o Increasing quality of service & interconnectivity o Advanced technology introduction such as 3G, M- commerce across India (e.g. m-check, ATM recharge)