Research Project On Airtel Ads

To find out effectiveness AIRTEL advertisements & their impact on the viewers

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the two year full-time Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management Programme.

Submitted by KAPIL KUMAR

Roll No: FT-07-563 Batch: 2007-2009 Institute for Integrated Learning in Management Graduate School of Management 16, Knowledge Park Greater Noida– 201 306 Month & Year-04/09 FINAL DISSERTATION

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DECLARATION FORM

I hereby declare that the Project work entitled_______________________________ ________________________________________________ submitted by me for the partial fulfillment of the Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management Program to Institute for Integrated Learning in Management, Greater Noida is my own original work and has not been submitted earlier either to IILM GSM or to any other Institution for the fulfillment of the requirement for any course of study. I also declare that no chapter of this manuscript in whole or in part is lifted and incorporated in this report from any earlier / other work done by me or others.

Place : Date :

Signature of Student

Name of Student

: _____________________________

Address

: _____________________________ ______________________________________

Acknowledgment

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I hereby take this opportunity to thank Institute for Integrated Learning in Management, Greater Noida for providing me an opportunity to do a research project on BHARTI AIRTEL. I express my sincere gratitude to my mentor and guide, Dr. Prabhat Pankaj who always provided me with necessary inputs, guidance and direction to carry out this project. Last but not the least, my million thanks to all the people whom I have conversed with and taken inputs from, to complete this project.

(Kapil kumar)

Table of Contents Acknowledgment……………………………………………………………….2 Executive Summary………………………………………….………………...5 Introduction…………………………………………………………………….6 3

Literature Review………………………………………………………………8 Airtel products……………...………………………………………………....9 Objective of Study…………………………………………………………….14 Research Methodology………………………………………………………..15 Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………16 Findings……………..………………………………………………………...27 Recommendations…………………………………………………………….28 Limitations of Study…………………………………………………………..29 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………..31 Questionnaire…………………………………………………………………32

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Mobile penetration is currently exploding in India and Bharti Airtel has been riding the crest of the huge mobile industry wave that has been formed. Vast market opportunities have now opened up the playing field in Indian telecom market and also has made it much more competitive. In this type of competitive environment it will be interesting to find out how AIRTEL advertisements have helped it to retain its number 1 position. The objective of the study is to find out how the different advertisements of AIRTEL are impacting the viewers to use AIRTEL and what type of changes AIRTEL needs to make in near future to make its advertisements more efficient and effective.

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INTRODUCTION (COMPANY OVERVIEW) Incorporated on July 7, 1995, bharti AIRTEL is a division of Bharti enterprises. The businesses of Bharti Airtel are structured into two main strategic groups •

Mobility

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Infotel

The mobility business provides gsm mobile services in all 23 telecom circles in india.while infotel business group provides telephone services and internet access over dsl in 15 circles. The company complements its mobile, broadband and telephone 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 with Singapore. Bharti tele-ventures provides end to end data and enterprise services to corporate customers by leveraging its nationwide fiber-optic backbone, last mile connectivity in fixed line and mobile circles.VSATs,ISP and international bandwidth access through the gateways and landing station. All of Bharti-ventures services are provided under airtel.in 2008; bharti Airtel attained its 5

90 million customer mark. The equity shares of Airtel are listed on the national stock exchange and Bombay stock exchange. Sunil Bharti mittal, the founder chairman of Bharti enterprises (who owns Airtel) is today the most celebrated face of the telecom sector in india.He symbolizes the adage that success comes to those who dream big and work assiduously to deliver it. Sunil Bharti mittal began his journey manufacturing spare parts for bicycles in late 1970s.his strong entrepreneurial instincts gave him a unique flair for sensing new business opportunities. In the early years, bharti established itself as a supplier of basic telecom equipment. His true calling came in the mid 1990s when the government opened up the sector and allowed private players to provide telecom services. Bharti enterprises accepted every opportunity provided by this new policy to evolve into India’s largest telecommunications company and one of the India’s most respected brands. Airtel was launched in 1995 in delhi.As the Airtel network expanded to several parts of India; the brand came to symbolize the very essence of mobile services. Since then, Airtel has established itself across India in most of the states covering a population of over 600 million people. Airtel will soon cover the entire country through a process of acquisitions and green field projects. With a presence in over 2,000 towns, Airtel today has the largest network capacity in the country. In the last nine years Airtel has achieved many firsts and unique records: it was the first to launch nationwide roaming operations, it was the first to cross the one million and the five million customer marks. It was also the first to launch services overseas. There are other 'firsts' credited to Airtel - many of them in the area of innovative products and services. Today, Airtel innovates in almost everything that it presents to the market. An excellent example is Easy Charge - India's first paperless electronic recharging facility for prepaid customers. As evidence of its fine record, Airtel has also been conferred with numerous awards. It won the prestigious Techies Award for 'being the best cellular services provider' for four consecutive years between 1997 and 2000 - a record that is still unmatched. And in 2003, it received the Voice & Data

Award for being 'India's largest cellular service provider', amongst others. Bharti Airtel has enjoyed an excellent run ever since the telecom sector opened. It has managed to hold on to its leadership position in spite of the presence of other players with deep pockets – Ambani’s, Tata’s, Birla’s and Vodafone. Has coped well with regulatory changes. It continues to attract and delight customers.it has also started making its presence felt worldwide also. Recently AIRTEL has become the third largest telecom player in the world. 6

Bharti Enterprises has successfully focused its strategy on telecom while straddling diverse fields of business. From the creation of 'Airtel', one of India's finest brands, to becoming the largest manufacturer and exporter of world class telecom terminals under its 'Beetel' brand, Bharti has created a significant position for itself in the global telecommunications sector.

Board of Directors The Board of Directors of the Company has an optimum mix of Executive and Non-Executive Directors, which consists of three Executive and fifteen Non-Executive Directors. The Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, is an Executive Director and the number of Independent Directors on the Board is 50% of the total Board strength. The independence of a Director is determined on the basis that such director does not have any material pecuniary relationship with the Company, its promoters or its management, which may affect the independence of the judgment of a Director. The Board members possess requisite skills, experience and expertise required to take decisions, which are in the best interest of the Company. The composition of the Board is as under:

➢ Sunil Bharti Mittal ➢ Rajan Bharti Mittal ➢ Akhil Gupta ➢ Rakesh Bharti Mittal ➢ Chua Sock Koong ➢ N. Kumar ➢ Kurt Hellstorm ➢ Donald Cameron 7

➢ Paul O’Sullivan ➢ Professor V.S. Raju ➢ Pulak Chandan Prasad ➢ Bashir Abdullah Currimjee ➢ Gavin Darby ➢ Syeda Imam ➢ Ajay Lal ➢

York Chye Chang

➢ Paul Donovan ➢ Arun Bharat Ram

PRODUCTS The Company is a part of Bharti Enterprises, and is India's leading provider of telecommunications services. The businesses at Bharti Airtel have been structured into three individual strategic business units (SBU's) - mobile services, broadband & telephone services (B&T) & enterprise services. The mobile services group provides GSM mobile services across India in 23 telecom circles, while the B&T business group provides broadband & telephone services in 90 cities. The Enterprise services group has two sub-units - carriers (long distance services) and services to corporate. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. Its include Voice Services Mobile Services Satellite Services Managed Data & Internet Services Managed e-Business Services Voice Services Bharti Airtel became the first private fixed-line service provider in India. It is now promoted under the Airtel brand. Recently, the Government opened the fixed-line industry to unlimited competition. Airtel has subsequently started providing fixed- line services in the four circles of Delhi, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & UP (West). Airtel Enterprise 8

Services believes that these circles have high telecommunications potential, especially for carrying Voice & Data traffic. These circles were strategically selected so as to provide synergies with Airtel's long distance network and Airtel's extensive mobile network. Airtel Enterprise Services, India's premium telecommunication service, brings to you a whole new experience in telephony. From integrated telephone services for Enterprises and small business enterprises to user-friendly plans for Broadband Internet Services (DSL), we bring innovative, cost-effective, comprehensive and multi-product solutions to cater to all your telecom and data needs.

Mobile Services Airtel's mobile footprint extends across the country in 21 telecom circles. It's service standards compare with the very best in the world. In fact, that’s how Bharti has managed to win the trust of millions of customers and makes it one of the top 5 operators in the world, in terms of service and subscriber base. The company has several Firsts to its credit: • The First to launch full roaming service on pre-paid in the country. • The First to launch 32K SIM cards. • 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. • The First telecom company in the world to receive the ISO 9001:2000 Certification from British Standards Institute Satellite Services Airtel Enterprise Services provides you connectivity where ever you take your Business. Satellite Services bring you the benefits of access in remote Locations. Airtel Enterprise Services is a leading provider of broadband IP Satellite services and DAMA/PAMA services in India.

Managed data & internet services Airtel enterprises services bring a comprehensive suite of data technologies. So Airtel is able to support all types of networks and ensure the customers can manage their network to the future seamlessly. These services include: leased lines, customized solutions, metro Ethernet.

Managed e-business services Airtel enterprise services offer an internationally benchmarked, carrier class hosting, storage and business continuity services. A huge range of services help the customers run their business the way they want. All this is possible because of world class high tech data centers.

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AIRTEL GROWTH STRATEGY MANTRA: Focus on Core Competencies and outsource the rest! Airtel has partnered with leading players in telecommunication sector across the globe. It has managed to work with the best of domain specialists globally and emerge as a world class entity. Partnerships include operational contracts with marquee vendors and strategic investors ranging from private equity investors to global telecom giants. Following are the major partnerships of AIRTEL:

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Warburg Pincus – a celebrated PE investor held a stake for a substantial period of time and was instrumental in providing Airtel support in its early stages.

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Vodafone was a strategic investor in Airtel. The investment made by Vodafone in BHARTI is one of the largest investments made in Indian telecom sector.

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Temasek – the Singapore based investor holds a considerable stake in it.

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Ericsson was given the mandate to provide, manage and maintain the equipment as well as provide quality assurance in Airtel‘s then 13 mobile circles.

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IBM was given the mandate to handle the back office requirements of Airtel’s presence in India

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The company has a strategic alliance with Singtel.The investment made by SingTel is one of the largest investment made in the world outside Singapore.

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In the case of broadband and telephone services and enterprise services, equipment suppliers include Siemens, Nortal and corning.

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The call centre operations for the mobile services have been outsourced to IBM Daksh, Mphasis and Hinduja TMT.

ACHIEVEMENTS First to launch Cellular service on November 1995. First operator to revolutionaries the concept of retailing with the inauguration of Airtel Connect (exclusive showrooms) in 1995. First to introduce push button phone in India. First to expand its network with the installation for second mobile switching center in April, 1997 and the first to introduce the Intelligent Network Platform. First to provide Roaming to its subscribers by forming an association called World 1 Network. First to provide roaming facility in USA. Enjoy the mobile roaming across 38 partner networks & above 700 cities Moreover roam across international destinations in 119 countries including USA, Canada, and UK etc with 284 partner networks. 11

It is also the first company to export its products to the USA.

PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY After the liberalization of the Indian Telecom Sector in 1994, the Indian cellular market witnessed a surge in cellular services. By 2005, there were a total of 12 players in the market with the five major players being Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited (Bharti), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Hutchinson-Essar limited (Hutch), Idea Cellular limited (Idea) and Reliance India Mobile (RIM) (Refer Exhibit I). All the players except RIM offered services based on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) technology. RIM provided services based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology as well as GSM. As competition in the telecom arena intensified, BHARTI AIRTEL took new initiatives to woo customers. Prominent among these were - celebrity endorsements, loyalty rewards, discount coupons, business solutions and talk time schemes. AIRTEL has used most number of celebrities for advertisements. The list includes-Sachin, Shahrukh, Rehmaan, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Zaheer Khan Etc.The most important consumer segments in the cellular industry were the youth segment and the business class segment. The youth segment was the largest and fastest growing segment and was therefore targeted most heavily by cellular service provider. Bharti Tele-Ventures adopted celebrity endorsement as its chief promotional strategy. By 2004 it emerged the unprecedented leader commanding the largest market share in the cellular service market. Hutch implemented the celebrity endorsement strategy partially, relying primarily on its creative advertising for the promotion of its brand. BSNL, on the other hand, attracted the consumer through its low cost schemes. Being a state owned player, BSNL could cover rural 12

areas, and this helped it increase its subscriber base. Reliance was another player that cashed on its innovative promotional strategies, which included celebrity endorsements and attractive talk time schemes. Idea relied heavily on its creative media advertising sans celebrities.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY The objective of the study is to find out the effectiveness of AIRTEL advertisements i.e. •

What type of impact these advertisements have on the viewers?

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Are the viewers getting the desired message?

The secondary objective includes finding out following: • •

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What type of advertisements viewers now days like? What type of changes AIRTEL needs to make in future?

RESEARCH METODOLOGY The data was collected from primary as well as secondary sources.

Primary data source: Around 80 people were randomly selected and their response to the questionnaire was taken as primary data.

Secondary data source: the secondary data was collected from following sources •

AIRTEL website

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Newspapers

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Internet

The total number of respondents was 80.Out of which 24 were female respondents and rests 56 were males.

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The respondents are categorized in three different groups. First group consists of person less than 20 years of age. These are mainly teenagers and are most likely to buy or use new mobile connections. The second group i.e.20-35 years of age are already using one or the other connection. The last group was mainly of somewhat older people and consists of 30% of the total sample.

The graph shows the % distribution of customers of different service providers .There are some more players in the market but for the shake of clarity, only these six were given consideration. Out of the major six players, Airtel is found to be having the largest market share with 32%.the main competitors to AIRTEL in terms of number of customers are BSNL and Vodafone.

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Popularity of ads of different brands among viewers

The advertisements of Vodafone were found to be more popular among the respondents. Most of them talked about the ‘’hutch dog”. Similarly the tag line of IDEA ‘’an idea can change your life” is also very popular. AIRTEL ads are supposed to be more or less centered on emotional factors.

75% of the respondents said that they like the TV ads more than any other medium of advertisement. The main internet users now a days i.e. youngsters were found to have a liking towards the advertisements used on internet. The housewives and the people older than 3 years like to go through advertisements in newspapers and magazines etc, and also like the advertisements on radio or local FM stations.

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Major portion of the respondents categorized AIRTEL ads as emotional ads. In every advertisement, one or the other facet of the human relations is at the centre. The AIRTEL ads were also considered to be different from the competitors and innovative. Many respondents claimed that the fun part was always missing from the AIRTEL ads.

Out of all celebrities endorsing AIRTEL, A.R.Rehmaan is most famous among the viewers. Almost every respondent linked the AIRTEL success with the famous TONE composed by Rehmaan.The girls mainly like the advertisements with Saif Ali khan and Shahrukh khan. One of the finding was that using too many celebrities in 17

advertisements is not that much effective. AIRTEL advertisement with seven celebrities including Saif, Kareena, Zaheer khan, Gautam Gambhir is supposed by the viewers as wastage of money.

60% of the respondents believe that the Celebrity endorsements give a brand a touch of glamour and the hope that a famous face will provide added appeal and name recognition in a crowded market. AIRTEL itself is already using a number of celebrities in its advertisements like shahrukh khan, Saif ali khan,kareena,Sachin,Madhvan etc. so in near future also AIRTEL should move on with celebrity endorsements as viewers give them value and have a liking towards them.

Major portion of the viewers got the message from the AIRTEL ads as it is a brand that offers services at cheaper price. The ads don’t give any hint about the service quality. So AIRTEL should give some consideration to this fact and try to emphasize on the better quality also through the advertisements.

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The claims made in AIRTEL ads are believable??

About 50% of the respondents had this belief that the claims made about the connectivity, voice clarity etc in the AIRTEL ads are true. The major portion of these 50% respondents was actually the AIRTEL users.35% of people suppose these claims as just a part of advertisement and non existing in actual.

70% of the respondents said that they started using that sim card because of one or other type of scheme. The different types of schemes like-10 paisa call, night calling free etc help the customers make their mind to shift to that particular service provider. The advertisements in general have a very small impact on their decision.

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FINDINGS FROM THE STUDY The research carried out helped us to come to the following out comes: ➢ In terms of liking of ads, Vodafone is way ahead of AIRTEL. ➢ Viewers have a liking towards most of the celebrities used in AIRTEL ads. ➢ The viewers like the ads with some funny content but this is missing in most of the AIRTEL ads ➢ The majority of the customers starts or shifts to a service provider based upon word of mouth and different schemes. The advertisements play a very little part in their decision. ➢ The preferences of the viewers for the celebrities are always changing so we can’t rely on a single celebrity for ever. ➢ Viewers like to see short and up to the mark ads but Most of the AIRTEL ads are too lengthy.

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RECOMMENDATIONS ➢ Along with using various celebrities for endorsements, AIRTEL should try to introduce advertisements with some sort of humor. ➢ The majority of perspective customers are teenagers, so AIRTEL ads should be more focused around them ➢ The people now days have started using more and more internet, so along with TV advertisements, AIRTEL should give more attention to online advertisements. ➢ People give very less attention to the print ads, so these ads should be mainly informative ads i.e. the ads giving information about new schemes and recharge coupons etc.

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LIMITATIONS The research was carried out taking care of each & every small points which can alter the results but still there were some limitations that must be acknowledged

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The respondents chosen were mainly from cities. So the results don’t include the responses of rural customers.

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To find out the overall effectiveness of advertisements a lot of data regarding the price paid to the celebrities and cost of advertisement etc. was required, but as this type of data is classified so it was not available.

CONCLUSION Mobile penetration is currently exploding in INDIA and Bharti Airtel has been riding the crest of the huge mobile industry wave that has been formed. Consequently great potential and huge market opportunities have now opened up the playing field in India’s telecom market and also made it much more competitive. In the present open market environment, there are currently over 10 major operators in India which are competing with each other to get the major share of this market. So at any point of time, AIRTEL can’t take things lightly. It needs to change its marketing and advertising strategies gradually. The advertisements used at present seem appropriate for AIRTEL but we can’t always rely on these advertisements and the celebrities.

Bibliography 23

www.airtelworld.com www.pdfcoke.com www.wikipedia.org Search engine used www.google.com www.trai.gov.in

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QUESTIONNAIRE Dear Respondent, I am a student of Institute for Integrated Learning in Management, Greater Noida and doing a research for a study for which I intend to pose a questionnaire to find out impact of the advertisements of some of the big players of Indian telecom sector. Your cooperation is deeply solicited to provide the relevant information. I assure that information will be kept confidential. Please tick at the place that matches your opinion.

1. YOU ARE 25

• Male • Female

2. Specify your age • <20 • 20-35 • 35+

3. Which service provider you use • • • • • •

Airtel Vodafone Reliance Tata indicom Idea Banal

4. You like mainly ads of which brand • • • • • •

Airtel Vodafone Reliance Tata indicom Idea Banal

5. Which type of ads you like most • • • • •

TV commercials Print ads Internet Radio Bill boards

6. How would you describe Airtel ads in general? • Emotional 26

• • • •

Boring Funny Informative Creative

7. The celebrity you like most in Airtel ads • • • •

Sachin Shahrukh Rehmaan Saif & kareena

8. Do celebrity endorsements make some difference? • Yes • No • Can’t say

9. What message you get from Airtel ads • Trying to create brand awareness • Cheaper than competitors • High quality at lesser price

10. The claims made in Airtel ads are believable • • • • •

Very agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strong disagree

11. You chose a service provider based upon • Advertisements 27

• Family and friends • Any particular service/scheme • Connectivity and clarity

12. Do you talk to someone else about Airtel Ads? • Always • Sometimes • Never

(Thanks for Co-operation)

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