Tell It Like It Is

Three young women huddled at a table; a little boy whispering in his grandfather's ear; an arguing couple; a charged moment between a footballer and a referee; a bride at her wedding; a riot... everyday images that capture the entire range of human emotions.

Soft black & white photographs labelled with the featured mood ""conspire, confess, negotiate, or just a simple yes and no "" make Airtel's latest campaign quite different from its earlier advertising efforts.

The theme throughout is "Express Yourself". There's no hard sell. The mobile phone "" or the mobile service "" is not predominant. And there's no spiel about networks, connectivity or airtime rates.

"We didn't want a 'talk more' campaign," explains Atul Bindal, group chief marketing officer and director, mobility, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd.

"We were looking for a way to deepen the emotional loyalty between the brand and the customer. We needed to drop anchor at a deeper level with existing as well as prospective customers."

The "360-degree" campaign was launched last month with full-page newspaper advertisements, a 60-second television commercial and innumerable hoardings all over the country. Rediffusion Dentsu Young & Rubicam was the agency for Airtel this time round as well.

Although Preet Bedi, president, Rediffusion Dentsu Young & Rubicam, doesn't really consider this an advertisement. "This execution is part of the genre of advertising that is really non-advertising "" presenting things the way they are. It's really unadvertising."

The "unadvertisement" was conceived after six months of research by Bharti. It has some high-profile names attached with it.

As with the last campaign, launched in November 2002, the music has been composed by music director A R Rehman who became a brand ambassador for Airtel last year.

The music during the last 5 seconds of the TV commercial segues into the signature tune Rehman created last year. Choosing the melody for the first 55 seconds wasn't easy.

Bindal speaks of sleepless nights spent at the composer's Chennai studio and finally selecting one of the half-dozen themes Rehman created.

Sachin Tendulkar was also named as Airtel's brand ambassador this year. The company's already tied that into usage promotions: it recently launched a "Sachin invitation plan" by which new subscribers could sign on at a monthly rental of Rs 150.

A peek at Airtel's campaigns over the years establishes how the Indian mobile services industry has evolved.

Initially, entry costs were high and in spite of themselves, mobile phones became status symbols. Status equals power, which is why Airtel's tagline "the power to keep in touch" worked so well. As the category expanded and moved downwards, it was time to "live every moment".

Now, volumes are pouring in, with hardly any effort from service providers. From just over 2 to 3 million subscribers in 1999, the Indian market for wireless telephony had grown to 14.2 million by March 2003 (source: Cellular Operators Association of India, or COAI).

Industry sources add that this year, over 1 million new subscribers have been added every month; that is likely to mean an annual increment of between 12 and 15 million.

According to COAI figures for June 2003, Bharti was the market leader for GSM cellular services with a 25 per cent; BSNL and Hutch follow with market shares of 21 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively. Clearly, the time is right for brand building.

"As the market evolves, it is necessary that the brand maintains its intimacy with the consumer," points out Bindal.

The campaign was launched keeping in mind the multiplicity of players and the larger urban audience.

"In four or five years' time a mobile phone will be the single most critical product needed by people. We had to establish the product as the thought leader, satisfy the consumer's emotional needs so that when they think 'mobile', they think of Airtel," says Bedi.

He adds that from being merely a means of communication, mobiles have moved on to become modes of self-expression. "That's the creative leap we took, to link what's happening in our environment in terms of self-expression."

Bindal makes a differentiation between the campaign and the positioning platform. Express Yourself, he says, is the common theme now for "everything" across Bharti "" from internal processes to interaction with channel providers and customers.

Moreover, it is a very good unifying platform. In May 2003, Airtel initiated a consolidation process; as a first step the prepaid brand Magic was converged with the Airtel mother brand. "We need to promote the umbrella brand," says Bindal.

Expect Airtel to continue with the "Express Yourself" campaign for a long while yet. The executions will, naturally, keep changing, although the present one is likely to continue for another three or four months.

Says Bindal: "This is a very good platform. It is a springboard to opening new dialogues with the consumer."