Rebranding of Airtel: Did it Work?

Jayashree Dubey*
Brand symbolizes the manufacturers promise to its customers. However, companies keep upgrading it offerings
to better serve its customers and to meet increased customers expectations or to target other segment. This
necessitates companies to revise its branding strategy to make customers associate the brand with the improved
& differentiated functions. This is precisely a situation that calls for rebranding to maintain competitive
differentiation. Rebranding has become a strategic tool to manage customer perceived brand image. The study
presents effectiveness of rebranding done by Bharti Airtel, an Indian telecom major, after its foray in global
markets to create uniform identity.
Introduction

he term brand symbolizes a

manufacturer s promise to its
customers. As described by
American Marketing Association, a brand
may be name, term, design, symbol, or any
other feature that identifies one sellers good
or service as distinct from those of other
sellers. A brand may identify one item, a
family of items, or all items of that seller. The
legal term for brand is trademark. If used for
the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade
name. Brand represents a set of values,
promises and even a personality (Daly and
Molone, 2004). Once a brand acquires a
favorable perception in the target customers
mind, half the marketing battle is won. This
is the reason why brand creation is given
utmost importance by the marketers while
planning a marketing strategy.
However, there are various factors which
reduce the long lasting positive impact of
brands, and compel companies to rejuvenate
brand image. Thus many companies decide
to rebrand themselves as a way of getting a
facelift, revitalizing themselves or being
reborn.
Major situations for rebranding are:
1. In hypercompetitive market,
competitors are fast in matching their
offerings with the offerings of the
customers most preferred brand,
nullifying the associated uniqueness.

2. Due to rapid technological advances,

companies themselves are quick in
launching improvised products/
services. This result into creation of
new unique selling product (USP) and
offering more then what the brand
name stands for.
3. The demands/ expectations of
consumers are changing fast,
decreasing relevance of existing
brands values.
4. During growth stage, in an attempt for
further expansion, companies start
targeting other segments. Points of
attractions for the new target segment
may be different from the primary
target segment.
5. Change in the ownership of the brand.
These are the situations when companies
need to rework to associate new meaning
with the brand to keep the customers interest
alive and to create & manage competitive
differentiation form the competitors. It is
important to make changes in the associated
meaning of the brand to the customers. This
phenomenon of giving a new meaning to the
existing brand is known as rebranding.
Rebranding refers to repositioning or
revitalizing a brand. Rebranding is also a
process of adjusting the positioning and
personality of a brand as part of firms
integrated marketing communication (Dubey
and George, 2011). Brand consists of termed

tangible (the physical expression of the

brand) and intangible (values, image, and
feelings) elements. Rebranding may consist
of changing some or all of those elements
(Daly and Moloney, 2004). Companies often
change their brand name, logo, tag line,
colour combination etc. as a symbolic
representation of the new and improved
product performance and brands promise
with the intention of developing a new,
differentiated position in the mind of
stakeholders and competitors (Muzellec and
Lambkin 2006; de Chernatony and Riley,
1998). Daly and Moloney (2004) have
proposed three format of rebranding,
aesthetics, repositioning and rebranding.
Purpose of Research
Bharti Airtel, the leading telecom company
of India, has taken up a rebranding exercise
to have single brand across all 19 countries
(India, African countries, Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh, and Seychelles) where it has
its presence. The massive rebranding
exercise cost Airtel over Rs. 300 crore
(US$67.20 million), when it changed its logo
and caller tune. Rebranding was unveiled on
18th November 2010 in India. The brand
makeover was done to give Airtel a more
youthful look as it gets more global in its
approach after expanding its operations
across all 19 countries.
There were many criticisms on the need for
rebranding by the industry leader at this

*Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

44

Journal of Marketing & Communication

stage. Some of them were of the opinion that

there was nothing wrong with the old logo.
Some found new logo resembling the logo
of its rival brand Vodafone. As per a research
by Position, 62 per cent of conversations
about new logo were negative (Position,
2010). Moreover the rebranding was not
associated with any change/ improvements
in its services in Indian market. This raises a
research question that whether only change
in brand identity, without making customers
experiencing a positive change, can help in
image makeover. The study was especially
important as the rebranding was done only
couple of months before mobile number
portability and 3G came into existence in
Indian market. Through number portability
a customer can switch over to other service
provider without changing the number.
While Airtel was communicating about
change in its logo & caller tune as part of its
rebranding campaign, other companies were
communicating positive points of their brand
to attract competitors customers. As the
main goal of a logo is to enhance awareness
and to build a beneficial image (Hem and
Iversen, 2004), we tried to find if the logo
change in case of Bharti Airtel served the
purpose? The major objectives of the
research were to find out:
i.

the level of customer awareness of

Airtels rebranding to assess the
operational efficiency in executing
rebranding

ii. change in brand perception after

rebranding
iii. impact of rebranding in influencing
customers of other brands to switch
over to Airtel after number portability.
iv. tangible change in the level of services
observed by Airtels customers on
rebranding
v. the points of improvement for Airtel
Scope of the Study: Airtel being a market
leader in Indian market many people are of
the opinion that the rebranding of Airtel in
India was uncalled for. As the new
advertisement clearly indicates that it is
trying to project Airtel as a trendy and
youthful brand. Hence the study covered
only Indian urban youth. The youth segment
was divided into two age groups: less than
30 and more then 30. Since the objective was
January - April 2014 Vol. 9 Issue 3

to study the immediate impact of rebranding,

the data was collected in the 1st and 2nd week
of December 2010. The study covered the
Indian market only, as it is the parent market
as well as the main market for the company.

Simple and appropriate statistical tools were

used for testing the hypotheses and drawing
conclusions viz. frequency distribution,
cross tabulation, Z-Test for hypotheses
testing of proportion. Test was applied at
5per cent significance level.

Hypotheses
In congruence with the above objectives,
following hypotheses were tested:
H1: Awareness of rebranding is same
amongst customers of two selected age
group people
H2: level of exposure to TV commercial is
same amongst the customers of two
selected age group
H3: Brand image has improved equally in
both the age group
H4: There is no difference in the influence
of rebranding to attract competitors
customers in the two selected age
group
Research Methodology
Cross sectional study was done for the
purpose of this study. The data was collected
using
non-disguised,
structured
questionnaire to get required information for
the purpose of the study. Questions
generally focused at finding the awareness
about rebranding, its impact in creating brand
image and generating interest amongst
customers of rival brand in switching to Airtel
and to find out any improvement observed
by its customers. Purposive sampling
method was used to collect the data from
212 respondents out of which 203 responses
were considered for the study. Table 1 shows
number of respondents from two age groups
and customers and non customers of Airtel.
Market share and addition in new
subscribers were found out using secondary
sources of data.
Table 1
Number of Respondents
Number of
Total
Respondents
(Age group)

Airtel customers
Non Airtel customers
Total

< 30
yrs

> 30
yrs

32
98
130

28
45
73

60
143
203

Limitation: As the objective was to study

the immediate impact and customers reaction
to rebranding there was less time to collect
data from large sample.
Major Findings
The main thrust of the study was to do
critical analysis on various aspects of the
rebranding at Airtel taking Indian market into
consideration.
Awareness of Rebranding: Logo and
Advertisement
It was found that the penetration of the news
of new logo was very high, 95.38 per cent of
the customers of age group less than 30
reported to have seen the logo where as in
case of people above 30 years of age it was
87.67 per cent (see Table 2). At 5 per cent
significance level it was found that the level
of awareness was same amongst people of
both age groups [Z value-1.515 (p value0.1298)]. However, as given in table 3 only
55.38 per cent of people below 30 years of
age and 71.23 per cent above 30 years of age
got exposed to TV advertisement. The level
of exposure of TV commercial is significantly
low for respondents of age group less than
30 yrs, as compared to age group more than
30 [Z value -2. 23, (p value -0.0258) ]. This
clearly indicates that a TV proved to be a
less popular media to communicate to the
younger lot. Thus statistically H1 can be
accepted that is awareness of rebranding is
same amongst customers of two selected age
group people. However, H2 stating level of
exposure to TV commercial is same amongst
the customers of two selected age group can
be rejected.
High level of awareness about rebranding
shows operational efficiency of the company
in rolling out rebranding. Airtel used both
conventional media like TV, Newspaper,
hoardings as well as interactive digital media
like social media and SMS.

45

Table 2:
Awareness of New Logo
Age Group of Respondents

< 30 year

> 30 years

Total

Airtel customers (60)

30 (93.75)*

22 (78.57)

52 (86.67)

Non Airtel customers (143)

94 (95.92)

42 (93.33)

136 (95.10)

Total (203)

124 (95.38)

64 (87.67)

188 (92.61)

Figures in parenthesis is proportion of total number of respondents of respective cell as given in table 1

Table 3:
Exposed to Advertisement
Age Group of Respondents

< 30 year

> 30 years

Total

Advertising

Seen

Seen

Seen

Airtel customers (60)

20 (62.50)*

16 (57.14)

36 (60.00)

Non Airtel customers 143

52 (53.06)

36 (80.00)

88 (61.54)

Total (203)

72 (55.38)

52 (71.23)

(61.08)

Figures in parenthesis is proportion of total number of respondents of respective cell as given in table 1

Improvement in the Brand Image

The impact of rebranding in improving the
brand image amongst its customers and non
customers was studied. The proportion was
calculated out of the total number of
respondents of specific category who were
aware about the new logo as mentioned in
table 2. It was found that overall 35.64 per
cent respondents said that brand image has
improved in their mind (see Table 4). It can
be seen that the image makeover was more
in case of current customers of Airtel (50 per
cent) as compared to non Airtel customers
(30.15 per cent). The data indicate that the
company shouldnt expect much gain in
terms of attracting competitors customers
as it has not resulted in enhanced brand
image among large proportion of competitors
customers. However this may clamp
customer exodus post number portability
due to rebranding. More important question
that needs to be answered is whether the
improved image formed immediately
alongside the rebranding process is
sustainable amongst its existing customers
in the absence of any improvement in
services.

46

This impact was also compared for two age

groups. The image upliftment was only in
25.81 per cent of the respondents of age
group less than 30 years and 54.69 per cent
in case of respondents of age group more
than 30 years as given in table 4. Significant
difference was found in the impact of
rebranding on respondents of two age

groups [(Z value -5.32, (p value- 0.0001)].

Thus the hypothesis, Brand image has
improved equally in both the age groups
cant be accepted. The reason could be
attributed to high level of exposure to
internationalized TV commercial in case of
respondents above 30 years of age.

Table 4:
Brand Image Improvement due to Rebranding
Age Group of Respondents

Total

< 30 Y/T

> 30

Airtel customers (52)

12 (40)*

14 (63.64)

26 (50)

Non Airtel customers (136)

20 (21.28)

21 (50)

41 (30.15)

Total (188)

32 (25.81)

35 (54.69)

67 (35.64)

Figures in parenthesis is proportion of total number of respondents of respective cell

as given in table 2

Message Customers are Getting

One of the major objectives of rebranding
was to create a uniform global identity for
the brand Airtel. The advertisement
campaign used during rebranding was shot

in Prague and featured foreign models to give

an international image to the brand. Thus
study also made an attempt to find out the
meaning customers are deriving from its
commercial. It can be seen from table 6 the
advertisement failed to convey a consistent

Journal of Marketing & Communication

message. While 34.24 per cent of the

respondent didnt find any specific message
in the TV commercial used during
rebranding, remaining respondents inferred
different meanings. This indicates the
brands failure to communicate a well directed
message. 26.63 per cent of respondents feel
that the company is trying to show its
superiority for 3G services, 20.65 per cent
perceived that the service is for urban youth,
12.50 per cent perceived that the company
has improved its services, whereas 5.98 per
cent respondent feels that they are trying to
show better network connectivity. In case
of respondents of below 30 years of age,

23.33 per cent perceive that the brand is for

urban youth. This data shows that company
has partially achieved its objective to give
Airtel a more youthful look as it gets more
global in its approach.
Rebranding for an established brand is done
with the intention of developing a
differentiated position in the mind of
stakeholders and competitors (Merrilees and
Miller, 2008). At the time when competitors
were focusing their commercials to get
advantage of number portability, Airtels
commercial failed to give any direction to it
commercial to create differentiated

positioning. Thus it is highly unlikely that

the company will gain any significant market
share due to this rebranding when the
industry is very near to the two game
changing events. Also due to high
teledensity in urban India, the next growth
trajectory for telecom companies is rural
market. As per Telecom Regulatory Authority
of India (TRAI), the teledensity in March
2010 was 119.73 for urban areas whereas in
rural India it was only 24.29. It is questionable
whether the urban-centric logo and
advertisement with a clear disconnect from
the rural market would succeed in attracting
rural customers.

Table 5:
Perception Developed on Rebranding
Number of Respondents (Proportion)

Total

< 30

> 30

Network quality is good (a)

6 (5)

5 (7.81)

11 (5.98)

Improved its services (b)

14 (11.67)

9 (14.06)

23 (12.50)

It is for urban youth (c)

28 (23.33)

10 (15.63)

38 (20.65)

Superiority as 3G service (d)

34 (28.33)

15 (23.44)

49 (26.63)

Nothing specific (e)

38 (31.67)

25 (39.06)

63 (34.24)

Total

120

64

184

Improvement in Service Quality

Perception associated with experience leads
to belief. As mentioned by Andrews and Kim
(2007) rebranding always involves some
changes in the existing perceptions among
customers and also firms position in the
market. As stated in previous section, 45.11
per cent (sum of a, b & d) (see Table 5) of the
respondents are deriving some positive
message from the new commercial and
overall 35.64 per cent (see Table 4)
respondents said that it has improved the
brand image. However, will Airtel be able to
sustain improved brand perception formed
due to the rebranding and TV commercials?
To make people believe on the new high
claims it is important to associate it with
better customers experience with the
product/ services. To gauge the sustenance
of the improved brand image, respondents
who were customers of Airtel were asked if
they have experienced better service. As
given in table 6, only 6.67 per cent of them
January - April 2014 Vol. 9 Issue 3

indicated that they have experienced an

improved service. This indicates that Airtel
will not be able to convert improved brand
image due to rebranding into generation of
word of mouth publicity. However under
circumstances when there are multiple
perception customers are forming about the

service due to rebranding, coupled with

negligible proportion of customers to endorse
improvement in service, there is little that
the rebranding will give as return on
investment of Rs.300 crores in terms of
improved brand image or market gain.

Table 6:
Improved Experience
Proportion of Customers

Total

< 30 Y/N

> 30

Airtel customers

2 (6.25)

2 (7.14)

4 (6.67)

Total

32

28

60

Proportion of Dissatisfied Airtels

Customers Intending to Shift after
Number Portability
The study also tried to find out the level of
dissatisfaction amongst Airtels customers

and their interest in switching over to other

service provider after number portability.
The study revealed a disturbing data for the
market leader indicating that 45 per cent of
the customers are dis satisfied and 40 per
cent showed their interest in shifting to other
47

service provider. The high level of dissatisfaction also gets reflected from
customers complaint that TRAI has since
2008-09. There were more than 3,570
complaints from Airtel subscribers, 2,100 from
Reliance Communications customers and
only 1,890 from Vodafone Essar customers
(Economic Times, 2011). This clearly
indicate that during rebranding company did
not make serious efforts to take note of
customers complaints and improve service
quality, however made only cosmetic
changes through rebranding. Hayes Roth,
vice president of global worldwide marketing

and business development for San

Francisco-based branding and design firm
Landor Associates says, You should never
do the re branding blind, because the board
of directors decided to do it. You need to
have some confidence that you understand
the employees and customers perspectives
before going in. Paul Bean (2008) has
mentioned, no matter what the rationale
behind a rebrand, an in-depth, fact-finding
mission is essential to plan and prepare for
the changes ahead. The customer survey
result shown in Table 7 indicates that
company was either unaware of the level of

customer dis-satisfaction and reasons

behind or they have ignored it.
At the time when the two important game
changing events (3G and Number portability)
in the industry were due, ignorance to reduce
customers dis- satisfaction while doing
rebranding could only lead to significant loss
to the company. In the third quarter of
financial year 2011 (3QFY11), profit after tax
Rs13 billion was below estimate of Rs15.6
billion due to forex losses coupled with
higher interest cost and one time re-branding
exp (Emkay, 2011).

Table 7:
Dis- Satisfaction in Airtels Customers
Age- group

Dis-satisfied

Shift

May shift

< 30

15 (46.88)*

14 (43.75)

1 (3.13)

> 30

12 (42.86)

10 (35.71)

2 (7.14)

Total

27 (45.00)

24 (40.00)

3 (5.00)

Figures in parenthesis is proportion of total number of respondents of respective cell as given in table 1

Impact on Customer Inflow Post

Number Portability
The study also tried to find the impact of
rebranding in influencing competitors
customers to switch to Airtel. Airtels
rebranding does not score high on this
parameter also. Only 5.88 per cent (see Table
8) of the respondent showed interest in
shifting to Airtel post number portability. Ztest was run to find if there is any difference
in the impact of rebranding in making
competitors customers of two selected age
group to shift to Airtel. Value of z comes out

to be 1.948, thus H4 can be accepted. Though

going by proportions, there is some
possibility to attract customer of age group
less than 30 years.
As the practice of keeping multiple SIM is
prevalent, a question was asked to know the
interest of respondents in choosing Airtel if
they purchase second SIM card. It was found
that overall 21.32 per cent respondents
showed interest in choosing Airtel for
second SIM. The chances of this figure
going down is more as it is only based on

perception formed due to advertisement.

Moreover if they seek recommendation from
Airtels customers, they may not get
favorable opinion due to high level of
dissatisfaction amongst existing customers
as mentioned in table 7, and not significant
number of Airtels customers have observed
improvement in service post rebranding.
However the data shows that Airtel can still
turn the table if they quickly act to add
differential benefit in its services before
customers finally conclude this rebranding
as sheer cosmetic changes.
Table 9:
Second SIM of Airtel

Table 8:
Attracting Competitors Customers
Age- group

Yes

May be

Total*

Age- group

Yes

Total

Less than 30

8 (8.51)*

5 (5.32)

94

Less than 30

11 (11.70)

94

More than 30

0 (0)

3 (7.14)

42

More than 30

18 (42.86)

42

Total

8 (5.88)

8 (5.88)

136

Total

29 (21.32)

136

Total number of respondents are taken from table 2

Conclusion and Recommendations
The operational execution of Airtels
rebranding was excellent as it resulted into
48

very high level of awareness. However, the

rebranding only served the purpose of
assigning a new and uniform logo and caller
tune for all its global market. The data

revealed that it may not give any major gain

to Airtel in terms of increased market share
and improved brand image in the Indian
market. Some of the major reasons could be
Journal of Marketing & Communication

the failure of the company to bring a tangible

improvement in its services when the
rebranding was taking place. Thus the new
logo and caller tune, despite been conveyed
using International-looking high decibel
campaign, is likely to remain associated with
the same service quality as with previous
logo.
As the company has moved to global markets
in recent past mainly through inorganic
growth, it has a clear goal behind rebranding.
It wanted to create uniform global identity
for its brand and give a youthful image.
However an international brand cant be
created just through uniform brand elements
and advertisement but has to be
accompanied by uniform high service quality
& improved customer satisfaction. Before
rebranding, Airtels CEO (International),
Manoj Kohli, had stated three focus areas in
African market: improved network coverage,
excellent customer care, and better products
(Pahwa, 2010). Despite of this Airtel started
improving its network much later (March
2011) than it completed rebranding
(November 2010) implying that the company
undertook rebranding exercise before
plugging gaps to remove operational

inefficiencies. Due to lack of synchronization

in operations and marketing planning this
rebranding will make customer identify Airtel
globally through same logo but will fail to
get similar image associated with the brand
in terms of quality in different global market.
Rebranding by way of only changes in
aesthetics, without removing inefficiencies
or adding values in offerings can only give
short term benefits. It is the product merit
that results into long term gain to the
company. It is evident from the fact that
Airtels market share in India was 21.34 per
cent as on 30th September, 2010 (Wikipedia).
However as per TRAI Airtels market share
went down to 20.09 per cent, in February
2011, and 19.99 per cent in March 2011. While
there was increase of 17.61 per cent in its
subscription base of Vodafone and 16.36 per
cent in Reliance, it was 15.85 per cent for
Airtel in February, 2011. Also as per the data
revealed by Cellular Operators Association
of India (COAI), after two month of existence
of mobile number portability (MNP), net
addition in subscriber base (ported in- ported
out) was 148,215 for Airtel, which was lower
than those of Vodafone (192,761) and Idea
(150,789) (Sridhar, 2011) indicating that the
competitors promotion strategy was more

effective for Indian market at the onset of

MNP.
Unveiling new brand, Airtels chairman Sunil
Mittal had said, Today, as we expand on
the global stage, this new brand identity
gives us the opportunity to present a single
powerful and unified face to our customers,
stakeholders and partners around the world
(Mittal, 2010). Though the rebranding created
a unified face of the brand world over, the
primary data and secondary data do not
reflect emergence of a stronger Airtel brand
in Indian market. Even under merger and
acquisitions situations, when rebranding is
mainly done with the objective to change
the name, first priority should have given to
remove inefficiencies, or improve quality or
to differentiate from competitor. This will
make people not just start recognizing a
brand with different brand element, but will
also help in improving the image and achieve
higher marketing objectives. Had the similar
rebranding exercise been done after removal
of operational inefficiencies and
improvement in customer service, it would
have done wonders for the brand.

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January - April 2014 Vol. 9 Issue 3

49

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