AIRTEL

With over 143 million subscribers in India, Bharti Airtel is the leading player in the Indian telecom sector. Indias leading providers of telecommunication services with a nationwide presence in all the 23 licensed jurisdictions (also known as Telecom Circles).

The largest wireless service provider in the country, based on the number of subscribers as of December 31, 2008. It offers an integrated suite of telecom solutions to our enterprise customers,

 On 18 November 2010, Airtel rebranded itself in India in the first phase of a global rebranding strategy. The company unveiled a new logo with 'airtel' written in lower case. Designed by London-based brand agency, Brand Union, the new logo is the letter 'a' in lowercase, with 'airtel' written in lowercase under the logo. On November 23, 2010, Airtel's Africa operations were rebranded to 'airtel'. Sri Lanka followed on November 28, 2010 and on December 20, 2010, Warid Telecom rebranded to 'airtel' in Bangladesh.

Studying Rebranding !
Rebranding is about acquiring new identity identity is not just about colours and name On the basis of these attributes customers opinion was studied using questionnaire methodology

We included Airtel logo,tune,tag line ,global association.

Why The New Airtel?

Airtel acquired 16 operations in Africa. So, to have competitive advantage across Africa Airtel rebranded itself keeping in mind the rich heritage with cross cultural diversity. Airtel on the acquisition of Zain in Africa and Bangladesh (where it acquired Warid Telecom) has come up with a new logo design and signature tune.

Airtel has decided to spend Rs 300 crores globally to market itself.

And the lowercase is our recognition for humility.

The gentle highlight almost gives the impression of a living object; at the same time, it represents a dynamic force of unparalleled energy

The red colour, which is an integral part of the brand, continues to represent heritage, energy and passion

The lowercase is airtels recognition for humility.

We like it ! We dont like it !

The sentiment of the top tweets from high ranking influencers and other social networks shows that: Almost 62% of the conversations about the new Airtel logo were negative. Only a small percentage of customers (6%)

The coverage in news sites and blogs was less polarized. Approximately 74% of news articles seem to be in favor of the new face of Airtel. Approximately 73% of bloggers expressed a balanced view of the

It misses the old connect

The peoples reactions on new logo, not very positive

The new logo does not have the capital A,

The red colour is still dominant in the new brand logo.

Logo a copied version of logos of other companies The red colour, of the brand represents heritage, energy and passion. Negative comments show that the logo is non appealing,

More than 50% of people disliked the image change

 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. 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

Tag Line !
With a brand new look, Airtel promises to deliver anything that the customer desires anywhere, anytime, with its new positioning, 'Diljochahe pass laye'. 'Diljochahe pass laye' or get closer to your loved ones with airtel Need - it was important to synchronise the logo with positioning Also as they were completely rebranded airtel so they changes their tagline to .Also the new logo is more youthful and vibrant so they have used this tagline inorder to make it align to the new logo.Also they have tried to advertise it in a fashion which could attract young generation Opinion- according to the blogs earlier tagline was express yourself which was more appealing .Blogs on social media has criticized the new

New Tune !
Catchy one as its from ARR but striving to beat his previous delivery, peppy and international in approach but lack the Airtel experience we possess with us. It is manly done for international appeal for that it has included Italian music with samba touch Opinion-People has mixed reviews regarding the airtel new tune, some say it is quite peppy and goes with the logo and tagline

Problems
From world

class affordable services Is it innovation & simplicity Is it imitation & deterioration of brand image
To young ,

vibrant and dynamic

Importance of Study
In the course of expanding internationally Airtel has acquired a whole lot of companies like Zain in Africa and Warid in Bangladesh. Now as these entities transition to the brand Airtel the company is trying to gain an international image - a new, modern, more friendly and accessible image in the minds of all the users in these various countries. Airtel has a new logo. It has a new positioning statement Dil jo chahe pass laye and whats more it even has a

The analysis of sentiment of the top tweets ranking influencers shows that: Almost 62% of the conversations about the logo were negative. Only a small percentage of customers (6%) positively about the new look and feel of

from high

new Airtel
reacted the brand.

From the thousands of tweets, Facebook discussions and Linkedin discussions the Position team analyzed 3 distinct themes around the reactions emerged: Approximately 15% of the conversations were direct comparisons of the new Airtel logo to the Videocon and Vodafone logos Approximately 10% of the conversations suggested that Airtel should have invested money in improving their customer service and network availability instead A very small minority (1%) called for a reinstatement of the old logo or a fresh redesign exercise

Why Study Rebranding ?

Our objectives of the study are:1.To study the change in consumers perception of old and new brand image 2.To study the gap between projection of brand image by company and perception in the mind of consumer regarding the brand. 3.To study the importance of rebranding by airtel from consumers perspective 4.To analyse the factors communicated by rebranding and their effect on brand image 5.To know the response of user and non user separately towards the rebranding

The Study
After changes in questionnaire 120 data samples collected for final analysis

Sampling Technique: Convenient Sampling

Pilot Study of 35 Data Samples

Sample composition: People who were literate enough to understand the rebranding exercise and Also who are aware of the rebranding done by airtel

Age group
The age group consists of 15-20 21-25 26-35 above 35 brackets

Method of research
Qualitative : Interviews from telecom service stores, Netnography. Quantitative: Surveys

Questionnaire design
The questionnaire has been designed in two ways process Part one: Exploratory study : It was conducted to understand the research problem followed by right questionnaire design . Use of netnography : with the help of netnography, we analyzed hundreds of the blogs on the sites like facebook , linkedin etc . Also we analysed the aricles on different websites and searched the statements made by companys top executives
Part two : Pilot study was conducted in the sample age group The data so gathered was analyzed using software package SPSS and various tools t-, multiple regression and exploratory used RESPONSE RATE: 100%

of 20 within different

the statistical like t-test , paired factor analysis were

Reliablity Test
Case Processing Summary Cases Valid Excluded Total N 115 3 118 % 97.5 2.5 100

Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha Cronbach's Alpha Based on N of Items Standardized Items

0.7898409

0.77796381

36

Result As proposed by Nunnaly (1970), the value of Cronbach alpha above 0.7 is satisfactory results, Cronbach alpha comes out to be 0.789 and also the Standarised Cronbach alpha is 0.78
Interpretation : Cronbachs alpha shows that the scale will produce consistent results if repeated measurements are taken .The data is pretty reliable to go a head with.

Number of consumer supporting spending crores for rebranding by airtel

340

Interpretation:- Airtel has spend more than 300 million dollars on the rebranding exercise which is not supported by maximum of the consumer. The project gives more insights to this non supportive behaviour of consumer .

Objective: the gap is analyzed between what company wanted to convey and to what extent it has been able to convey it.
One-Sample Test -test value 5

New logo[Vibrant& dynamic] New Logo[Innovative] Red color (energy and passion) Red color[Powerfulness] Red color[Youthfulness] Lower case[Humility] New tagline[Emotional appeal] New tagline [Powerful] New tune [International]

Df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Difference -1.68966 -1.93103 -1.35345 -1.62931 -1.33621 -1.88793 -1.39655 -1.76724 -1.41379

19.06067 19.45318 15.91243 18.35956 15.92747 20.83395 -17.8389 20.54381 17.19927

115 115 115 115 115 115 115 115 115

0,00** 0.00** 0.00** 0.00** 0.00** 0.00** 0.00** 0.00** 0.00**

The t test conducted with the test value =5 , the difference is with the 99% confidence level. which is statistically significant.

 Null Hypothesis:There is no gap between what user has perceived and what airtel wanted to portrait Result:There is significant mean difference in all the dimensions

Interpretation: There is a significant gap in the communication of message of rebranding and the perception of consumer about it.

Objective : The negative factors got associated with the brand as per consumers perception , which company never wanted to convey . so the gap of the analysis between consumers perception and company communication regarding these associations is studied.

The consumer has associated negative factors with the brand dimensions of airtel after rebranding, which company never intended to convey. This has marred the image of company to a significant extent.

One-Sample Test: test value =1 t Df Sig. (2tailed) 0.00** 0.00** 0.00** 0.00** 0.00** Mean Difference 2.33 1.46 1.56 1.74 1.76

New Logo [Imitation] Red color [Unprofessional] Lower case [Weakness] New tagline [Dull] New tunel [Alien]

25.74 16.22 16.93 18.34 20.75

115 115 115 115 115

 Result: there is significant difference between what case as well and the difference is quiet significant.

Interpretation:people have associated new airtel more with negative element which the company never wanted to portrait

"GAP" model of service quality from Parasuraman et al. (Zithaml & Bitner 1996). This model offers an integrated view of the consumercompany relationship.

Objective :
rating of old and new branding

To study the difference in

We have used paired t test in ratings of old and new brand dimensions and the findings are as follows

Paired Samples Statistics Pair1 Pair2 Pair3 Pair4 Old logo New logo Old tagline New tagline Old tune New tune O brand imag N brand imag Mean 3.21551 2.956897 3.12069 3.267241 3.75 3.37069 3.396552 3.508621 N 116 116 116 116 116 116 116 116 Std. dv 0.842419 1.024841 1.188021 1.049702 0.883422 0.973833 0.843175 0.982417

Paired Samples Correlations N Pair 1 Pair 2 Pair 3 Pair 4 old logo & new logo old tagline & new tagline Correlation Sig. 0.085 0.288 .224 0.005

116 -.160 116 0.0994236

old tune & new tune 116 - .114 old brand image & new brand 116 0.2582763 image

Paired Samples Test Paired Differences mean 0.258621 -0.147 0.37931 -0.112069 Std. Dev 1.427193596 1.505 1.387241068 1.117229117 std error 0.132511599 0.139743989 0.1288021 0.103732119 Lower -0.0039 -0.4234 0.12418 -0.3175 Upper 0.5211 0.13025 0.63444 0.0934

df

sig.

Pair1 Pair2 Pair3 Pair4

1.952 -1.05 2.945 -1.08

115 115 115 115

0.049* 0.297 0.004* 0.282

Analysis and interpretation

Null hypothesis: There is no difference in the means of ratings of the old and new brand dimensions

Interpretation:

The mean difference in the ratings of old and new logo is maximum and also statistically significant . Thus, People prefer old logo than new logo. The second higher difference is coming in old and new tune that also at 90%confidence level. Though no significant difference between

the old and new tagline . Overall the likeability of old branding was significantly higher than new.

Background to the result:

The result confirms the research (Stephen Brown, Robert V Kozinets, John F Sherry); Brand Nostalgia : People get associated with old brand;they are resistant to any change to it. Similar has happened with airtel. People find an attachment with old logo,

Objective : To see the linear relationship between the image of new brand with the factor associated (conveyed or perceived ) with new brand logo , tagline etc. Problem of multicollinearity: On applying regression, the problem of multicollinearity came up .then factor analysis is applied to solve it and reduced the factors from 19 to 6.

Factor Analysis
Rotated Component Matrix N.Logo[Vibrant and dynamic] N.Logo [Imitation] N.Logo [Innovative] Red colour (Energy and passion] Red colour [Powerfulness] Red colour (Youthfulness] Red colour [Unprofessional] Lower case [Humility] Lower case [Weakness] New tagline [Emotional appeal] New tagline [Powerful] New tagline [Dull] New tune[International] New tune [Alien] Brand image [Global association] Brand image [Youth orientation] Brand image [Casual atdtwdsconntry) Airtel's rebranding detr of image Airtel dynamic and youth brand Component 0.6736 0.43304 0.6442 0.7747 0.7437 0.7475 0.761 0.65806 0.711 0.736 0.653 0.410 0.437 0.726 0.777 0.769 0.726 0.643 0.5516

KMO and Bartlett's Test

0.743492 Kmo 804.3293 Bartlett's Chi-Square

171
Df .000 Sig.

values whose eighen value is less than 1 are rejected . Cumulative percentage of explained variation upto 69% which is quite acceptable.

Reduced factors
Factor 1: Brand representation Vibrant and dynamic Energy and passion Powerfulness Youthfulness Dynamic Factor 2:brands wrong perception Imitation(new logo) Unprofessional(red color) Weakness(lowercase) Casual attitude towards country(brand image) Factor 3:brands and emotions Emotional appeal(tagline) Powerfulness(tagline) Factor 4:brands uniqueness Global association Youth orientation Factor 5: brand Innovation Innovative(new logo) Factor 6:others Lower case in logo represents humility Alien(new tune)

Towards linear relationship Multiple Regression :

Dependent factor: The attitude of consumer towards new brand image is taken as dependent variable. Independent factor: The factors reduced by factor analysis are used as independent variables.
Model ANOVA Sum of Squares 65.58 Regression 45.41 109 Residual Total 110.99 115 0.601645 df Mean Square 8.568677 F Sig.

6 1

44.32**

0.000

Model Summary Model 1 R 0.739648 R Square 0.609149 Adjusted Square 0.602626 R Std. Error 0.675658

Coefficient Model 6 (Constant) Brand rep Brand s wrong perce Brand and Emotions Brand uniqueness Brand innovation others UnstCoeff 0.350 0.364 -0.375 0.354 0.328 0.1543 0.0407 0.370 -0.382 0.360 0.334 0.157 0.04144 StandCoeff T 48.7186 5 5.03843 5 1.76105 4.89673 9 4.54580 2 2.74362 0.56295 4 Sig. 0.00** 0.00** 0.02482* 0.00** 0.00** 0.03505* 0.3744

Regression Model
Brand image = 0.350 +0.36 (Brand representation) -0.375 (Brands wrong perception) + 0.354(Brand& Emotions)+0.328(Brand uniqueness)+ 0.1543(Brand innovation) +0.0407(others)

This is the model that comes up as the linear relationship between the brand images ,with the factors that were intended to be conveyed and are perceived by the changes in brand dimensions such as logo, tagline etc

To study difference in effect of rebranding in user and non user

We have conducted independent t-test between users and non users rating of new and old brand
Independent Samples Test T O logo airtel user N logo airtel non user Old tagline New tagline Old tune New tune Old brandimage New brandimage 1.03 1.04 1.54 1.54 -0.6 -0.6 0.48 0.48 -0.15 -0.15 0.7 0.738 0.3 0.3 0.75 0.75

Df 114 111.185 114 113.27 114 113.94 114 113.99 114 113.87 114 112.86 114 112.19 114 110.7

Sig. (2-tailed) 0.3 0.29 0.12 0.12 0.54 0.54 0.62 0.62 0.87 0.87 0.42 0.46 0.75 0.76 0.45 0.45

Mean Difference 0.16 0.16 0.29 0.29 -0.13 -0.13 0.09 0.09 -0.02 -0.02 0.13 0.13 0.048 0.048 0.138 0.138

Analysis and interpretation:

Hypothesis : There is no difference in the means of likeability of old and new branding in between user and non user

Result: There is mean difference in all the cases and also p value is more than .05 in all cases Interpretation: we accept our null hypothesis .There is no significant difference between the perception of user and non user with reference to new branding. Hence old branding is equally liked more than new branding by user and nonuser both

Findings & Recommendations

1. Finding: The majority of consumer is against the Airtels excessive spending of around 340 crore on rebranding. Recommendation: The company should justify their spending to the consumer in order to retain its positive

image

2. Finding: Brand nostalgia affecting airtels rebranding Recommendation: Since human nature resists change, so in order to make the change acceptable company they should indulge into some consumer oriented campaign.

4, Regression model as explained Importance :The finding is important because the model can be used to get the predictive measure of the amount of work required to be done on factors like brand innovation and uniqueness etc in the campaigns to improve the overall brand image 5. Findings: There is a significant gap in the communication of message by company of rebranding and the perception of consumer about it. As explained Recommendation: The Company, if wants to convey an image than effective campaign is required for the same. Also in order to remove the taint of imitation and such factors clear communication is required .

Limitations
Sample size is small The time period taken to complete the project was very relatively less compare to the wide scope of the study.

Premature stage of rebranding test its final impact .

to

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