Bharti

Airtel “Express Yourself” campaign wins 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 awards widely acknowledged as the most coveted amongst the advertising fraternity

• ● The Advertising Agencies Association Of India (AAAI), is an apex body of top 80 member agencies controlling 75% of total advertising business in India.
• ● The awards in the 10th year of its inception recognizes outstanding performance in advertising by the agencies .
• ● Amongst all the recognitions, the brand campaign of the year is the most sought after award .
• ● Close to 37 of India’s premiere advertising agencies submitted a total of 2750 entries for the awards.
• ● With no Gold winner this year, the judges after screening all the entries awarded two “Silvers” to Airtel:
• ● Best advertising film.
• ● Airtel Express Yourself being the brand campaign of the year.
• ● In addition, Airtel also won a bronze for its “Smiley” Ad. Campaign.
• ● The 10 member award jury included imminent members from the Indian advertising industry- Prasoon Joshi, Nanji, Balki, Sridhar.
• ● Airtel’s Express Yourself had earlier also struck a chord with the international audience when it won the “World Communications Best Brand of the Year’ award in October ’04 in London.

New Delhi, December 4, 2004 : Airtel – India’s leading mobile service provider and a part of India’s largest telecom conglomerate Bharti Enterprises today won two ”Silvers” for the Brand campaign of the year & the Best advertising film at the prestigious Advertising Agencies Association Of India (AAAI) awards. In addition, Airtel also won a bronze for its “Smiley” ad campaign. Out of all the awards, the campaign of the year is widely regarded as the most coveted recognition. The Airtel brand campaign won this award amidst stiff competition from 2750 entries submitted by 37 advertising agencies.

According to Mr. Atul Bindal Director-Mobility & Group Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Mobile Services, “It is an honor for Airtel that its brand campaign has been chosen as the campaign of the year at the AAAI awards. What makes it special is that the recognition has come from members of the advertising fraternity. Never before in the history of telecom, has a mobile service successfully de-linked itself from being just a ‘carrier’ to a larger platform with an even bigger proposition - ‘Honesty of Expression’. With expression and communication being the two most basic emotions, their amalgamation was aptly captured by the ‘Express Yourself’ theme.”

Additional Details About AAAI Awards
The Advertising Agencies Association Of India (AAAI) is an apex body of top 80 member agencies, controlling 75% of total advertising business in India. The award in the 10th year of its inception recognizes outstanding performance in advertising by the agencies. For deciding this year’s awards, the 10-member AAAI jury included imminent members from the Indian advertising industry i.e. likes of Prasoon Joshi, Nanji, Balki, Sridhar.

Airtel’s Express Yourself Brand Campaign- A Winner All The way

Airtel, which identified “Brand Preference by trust & innovation” as one of the means of reaching out more effectively to the customers, rolled out its ‘Express Yourself’ campaign. 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. The new approach by Airtel was recognized by the marketing and communication community and won it several accolades and mentions in different forums. It is by virtue of its brand preference initiatives that Airtel is today one of the best brand across the world.

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. Commenting on the success, one of the panel judges remarked, “This was a well presented entry supported by persuasive data on brand awareness and business results.” The depth of the marketing effort featuring both the cricket hero Sachin Tendulkar and the use of a classical signature tune composed by the music maestro A.R Rehman also impressed the judges. Such was the appeal of the tune that it became a leading ring tone download in India.

Besides mass media advertising, the Airtel’s success was also evident in the commendation received via hundreds and thousands of weblogs, column inches of news coverage and the customer service records

International Recognition
Airtel has also won the “World Communications Best Brand of the Year” award. The World Communication awards constituted by the London based Emap Communications Group are widely recognized as one of the telecom industry’s foremost telecom accolade. The award in its sixth year of inception has had a sustained level of interest and high quality entries since its inception in 1999. The award, recognizes outstanding performance by companies and brands from across the world in the telecommunications industry The award is based on the actual market performance of the brand and the parameters include revenue growth, market share & market share growth and demonstrated leadership in product and service innovation. Airtel had won this award amidst stiff competition from leading international players of the likes of Orange, British Telecom, Starhub and M1.

About Bharti : Bharti Tele-Ventures is one of India’s leading private sector provider of Tele-communications services with an aggregate of 9.84 million customers as of end of October ‘04, consisting of over 9.06 million mobile customers. The company today offers mobile services in 19 out of 23 circles in India. The company also provides fixed - line services and Internet access over DSL in 5 circles. The company complements its mobile and fixed-line services with national and international long distance services. The company also has a submarine cable landing station at Chennai, which connects the submarine cable connecting Chennai and Singapore. The company provides reliable end-to-end data and enterprise services to the corporate customers by leveraging its nationwide fibre optic backbone, last mile connectivity in fixed-line and mobile circles, VSATs, ISP and international bandwidth access through the gateways and landing station.