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
• 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

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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.

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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

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 ➢ 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

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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:

• 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.

• 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.

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

• 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.

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

• 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.

• 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.

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 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

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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?

• Are the viewers getting the desired message?

The secondary objective includes finding out following:

• What type of advertisements viewers now days like?

• What type of changes AIRTEL needs to make in future?

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 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

• Newspapers

• 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
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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

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

• 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.

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 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

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 www.airtelworld.com

www.scribd.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
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 • 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
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 • 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
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 • 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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