A friend in need

In the new campaign, Airtel shifts focus from the mobile handset to the internet in other words, from mobility to sharing

Friends came to its rescue when the pug, the Zoozoos and sirji’s ‘what an idea’ began to eclipse its visibility. Friends, each of whom is unique, and went viral to give Airtel the much needed leg-up, are back this year with a new story. While last year the attempt was to show how one could stay connected with all the friends one couldn’t do without, the idea this year is to focus on sharing. Which means from an accent on mobile connectivity last year, the focus has shifted to the internet as the delivery platform in 2012. And the earlier youthful rendition of “Har friend zaroori hai” has evolved to “Jo mera hai woh tera hai”.

The new television commercial (TVC) emphasises the importance of internet in strengthening the bond of friendship. The tempo in the ad picks up as an energetic bunch of young adult gets rocking on an open-top, double-decker bus, celebrating the way they can share their lives via the internet. The jingle is catchy, which, say its makers, is one the youth can relate to. “The idea is to associate Airtel with friendship and all that the idea of friendship stands for. The double-decker bus brings out the idea of mobility very strongly and the jingle helps the environment come alive,” says Bharat Bambawale, global brand director, Bharti Airtel.

While working with the young people Airtel realised that friends are the network the youth is connected to most of the time. “We decided to take this up and make it the central thought in our communications,” says Bambawale. By usurping friendship as an objective co-relative Airtel has attempted to do two things — target a population, mostly in the 18-20 age-group, that has taken to data services faster than any other demographic, and tell them that the service provider is the best option they have in staying connected.

The concepts of friendship and ‘bringing people together’ are widely used in categories that target the youth in a big way. Beverage brands, in particular, portray themselves as best enjoyed with friends, be it a night out with the boys or an all-girl night in. Examples that come straight to mind are Chivas’ ‘Live with Chivalry’ global effort that was launched in 2008, and Budweiser’s US campaign Band of Buds. While both the campaigns are based on the close association that groups of friends enjoy, Chivas has taken a moral high-ground in that it shows groups of men united through a chivalrous code of conduct, men who understand how true gentlemen should live.

For Airtel, however, the target is a slightly younger audience and so it takes the usual song-and-dance routine to establish an instant connect. Launched on Friendship Day earlier this month, the new campaign attempts to demonstrate how friends can share their lives if they have a good internet connection. “For friendship on internet this year, we thought that a really interesting insight would be to show the innumerable ways in which we share each other’s lives,” says Agnello Dias, co-founder and chief creative officer, Taproot Communications, agency that conceptualised the campaign.

Elaborating on the reason to focus on sharing through networking sites, Dias adds, “We found that among the various things you do on the big four networking platforms on the internet — YouTube, Facebook, Google and Twitter — the common feature is sharing. While these platforms cater to different needs and uses for the youth, the common factor that binds all is the need to share.”

But why scrap a campaign idea that completely changed the way Airtel was perceived? That was seen as an apt repartee to popular campaigns of rival brands? Airtel’s Bambawale clarifies, “We wanted to present the brand in a clear leadership voice in the internet space. And we wanted to do that through the idea of friendship that we have usurped with the ‘Har friend zaroori hai’ campaign.” So if ‘har friend zaroori’ is one insight into the friendship territory, ‘jo mera, tera’ is one step forward in the same terrain. “We were clear that we will explore a fresh insight within the friendship territory that will be appropriate for the internet. That is when, working with our agency, we came up with the thought about ‘sharing’, an insight that drives internet behaviour for young people,” adds Bambawale.

The TVC is supported by digital as well as on-ground activation. Through a Facebook event leading to the launch of the TVC, Airtel generated a virtual friendship band, touted as the longest in the world, that helped create a lot of buzz around the new campaign. Airtel, India’s largest and the world’s third largest mobile services operator, saw more than 1,80,000 people downloaded the app, with 12.6 million friends putting on the virtual band.