Airtel's Rebranding A Good Move

With over 143 million subscribers in India, Bharti Airtel is the leading player in the Indian telecom sector

. Airtel rebranded its identity, which became the master brand for all 19 countries including 16 countries in Africa (where it acquired Zain Telecom), and Bangladesh (where it acquired Warid Telecom). Company has come up with a new logo design and signature tune, and it will spend Rs 300 crores globally to market it. The new logo does not have the capital "A", but the red colour will still be dominant in the new brand. The red colour, of the brand, continues to represent heritage, energy and passion. Also the new logo has lot similarities with the logo of erstwhile Zain Telecom.

In the course of expanding internationally with the acquisition of companies like Zain and Warid, Airtel is trying to gain an international image in the minds of all the users in various countries it operates in. It is the first time in 15 years that company is changing its logo. The acquisition of Zain added about 40 million subscribers from African countries. Zain is the market leader in 10 countries among the 15 countries acquired by Airtel and on second position in 4 countries. Because of the huge subscriber base in new market, change in logo has been done keeping in mind its synchronization with the logo of Zain. The purpose of the synchronization is to give the sense of continuity to African subscribers (of erstwhile Zain) in form of new logo of Airtel (which is very similar with that of Zain). The operations of Sudan and Morocco will be continued by Zain.

The people"s reactions on new logo are not very positive. According to a research, more than 50% of people disliked the image change which was evident from the comments on public sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc., and through poll by research companies. The negative comments show that the logo is "non appealing", it misses the old connect; and design is a copied version of logos of other companies like Vodafone, Videocon, Uninor, etc. Also many people have criticized the company for investing such a huge amount in rebranding, instead of improving their customer service and network availability and their readiness for 3G services. While the comments from the social media are overflowing with the negative comments, traditional media have positive or neutral responses. Approximately 74% of news reports and articles seem to be in favour of the new face of Airtel.

The possible loss of unhappy customers in India, who are disappointed with the rebranding of Airtel, will be easily offset by the acquisition of subscribers of Zain in Africa. Only the future will tell what will be the impact of this rebranding exercise on the Airtel"s fortune, and how will the competitors respond to this move by Airtel

by: www.365businessdays.com

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