Brands
Airtel dials strongly into Gujarat
MUMBAI: It’s taking the battle into what is considered Reliance’s home turf (and possibly Jio’s too): Gujarat. Bharti Airtel has launched an ad campaign wherein it is touting its improved coverage in the western Indian state.
It features Gujarati folk singer Aditya Gadhvi – known for his hit Khalasi from Coke Studio Bharat. The ad -in Gujarati – begins with Gadhvi shooting in a desert like area for an Airtel commercial with a filming crew in which the dialogue has him saying Airtel has been adding the equivalent of eight towers a day in Gujarat. He pooh-poohs the statement; he is challenged by one of the crew members and he chooses to do a speed test. Which he does and to his bewilderment it runs up to 226 Mbps. The TVC ends with Gadhvi singing the praises of Airtel’s 5G Plus service.
Bharti Airtel today issued a press release to the Bombay stock exchange wherein it announced that the ad campaign follows its expansion drive which saw it installing more than 1,700 new cellular towers in Gujarat over the past seven months – which tots up to about eight every day.
Through this initiative, the company, says it intends to expand its coverage to 7,000 villages across the state, impacting over five million people. The Airtel network will now provide connectivity in urban, semi-urban, and rural areas, including highways, tourist destinations, and trade centers, ensuring comprehensive coverage in the region, the release points out.
Earlier in November 2023, Bharti had issued another release wherein it had stated that “within the first year of the launch of Airtel 5G Plus, it has over 2.2 million unique 5G customers in Gujarat. Airtel 5G Plus service is available across all the districts in the state.”
In June 2024, it had made another release stating that it had installed 2,525 new towers in Gujarat between December 2022 and March 2024, with each city witnessing a considerable surge in infrastructure development. Among the major cities, Ahmedabad, then led with 273 new towers, followed by Surat with 266 towers and Vadodara with 225 towers.
Bharti Airtel has since then been working on strengthening its coverage in the remote parts of Gujarat. And the latest network growth push and ad campaign is only a follow up of its intention to capture more customers in the western Indian state.
The key question now is: how will Reliance Jio react to Airtel’s aggression in its home state Gujarat?
One can’t forget the Ranbir Kapoor-featuring TVC promoting Jio AirFibre with the tagline being JioFibre zindagi mein aaye toh baat ban jaaye during the IPL a few months ago. But that was a national campaign and in Hindi.
Will Reliance Jio go Gujarati as well?
Let’s wait and watch if it will dial in too!
Brands
Acko CMO Ashish Mishra to exit in July
The digital insurer’s marketing chief, who helped build the brand over nearly five years, is heading for the exit.
Ashish Mishra is stepping down as chief marketing officer of Acko, with his departure confirmed for July. He remains in the role for now, and an official announcement from the company is expected shortly.
Mishra joined the digital insurance start-up in August 2020, making him one of the longer-serving marketing chiefs in India’s fintech and insurtech space. Over nearly five years, he played a central role in building Acko’s brand presence in the country’s fiercely competitive digital insurance market. More recently, he was closely associated with Acko Life’s Unmixed brand philosophy, a proposition built around pure protection products stripped of the investment components that have long complicated traditional insurance offerings in India.
Before Acko, Mishra spent over a decade at HSBC in a series of marketing leadership roles spanning the Middle East, including regional marketing manager for credit cards and advance propositions, brand and media manager, and marketing manager for retail banking. Earlier in his career, he worked on the agency side, serving as senior brand service manager at Lowe Lintas and as executive for brand communications at DDB Mudra Group.
His exit leaves Acko with a sizeable gap to fill at a time when the brand is pushing deeper into life insurance and doubling down on its direct-to-consumer positioning. Whoever takes the seat next will inherit a brand that Mishra spent five years building from the ground up. That is not nothing.
