What an Advertise-Meant?

Tagline: Proud to be Indian. Proud to be Bharti.

Agency: Percept H

Duration: 90 seconds

First seen: November ’08

Ad Message: Introducing Bharti’s new corporate logo and strategic vision, reinforce Airtel’s belongingness to umbrella group Bharti

Target Audience: All Indians

Frequency: Medium

Description: Quite simply, it’s a series of shots accompanied by the following script: 1500 years ago, an Indian taught the world how to count [Aryabhatta].The father of surgery. Also Indian [Sushruta]. It was an Indian who invented wireless communication [Jagdish Bose]. 90% of the world’s computers run on a chip, made by an Indian [Vinod Dham]. One man fought a war without fighting. He too was Indian [Mahatma Gandhi]. Just imagine what a billion of us can do. Together. When you stand for what you believe in, you can change the world. Proud to be Indian. Proud to be Bharti.

[Caution: Strictly opinionated comments follow]

This is one ad that stopped me in my tracks, the very first time I caught it on air. The ingenious idea, the extraordinary Indian personalities chosen, the brilliant use of A.R. Rehman’s ingrained tune and the black-and-white shots with only the logo’s blue and yellow colors standing out, all come together as a tour de force that engulfs you, moves you and stirs you – the Bhartiya in you.

Of note is the use of Airtel’s signature jingle that might be a conscious attempt to help the uninitiated customers connect the name Bharti with Airtel, owing to the latter’s popularity .

That said, it did leave me wondering…what precisely is ‘Bharti’ trying to convey here? Having read in the news that Bharti has just revamped its corporate logo, the obvious answer was that this video is a public revelation of the same. But when I researched some more and read this official announcement on the site, I could relate with the broader, strategic shift that Bharti wants to communicate. To quote the relevant text – “Bharti Enterprises … new brand identity reflects Bharti’s strategic intent to create a conglomerate of the future by bringing about “Big Transformations through Brave Actions.”

And I am not alone here; going by the public reactions (read ‘youtube commentary’) it is quite evident that this video is different things to different people. Some are completely overwhelmed with patriotic sentiments, some feel it’s an attack on Bharti’s British rival Vodafone (well, someone tell them that Vodafone is mentioned on Bharti’s home page as a partner), some feel it’s unjustified given that Bharti is partnering with American giant Wal-Mart, and some others are simply awestruck.

Now if that is the medley of reactions that Bharti wanted to evoke, they have done so with flying colors.

The only secret wish I have is that they should also come up with Hindi and regional versions of this ad, just from the perspective of not depriving the non-english masses (which btw, form 95% of India) of this beautiful message (Ok, I confess that the extremist in me felt slightly let-down at the use of a foreign language in this particular context).

Nevertheless, watch this ad and watch your chest swell with pure patriotic pride.

Trivia: Airtel’s extremely successful ‘Express Yourself‘ campaign that aired a couple of years back had similar message and execution. 

You can download the music for this ad by clicking on the icon below:

Weighted Average Rating: 765/95 = 8.05 (on a scale of 10)

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