Airtel's latest campaign looks at rural connect

Airtel has unveiled its latest campaign highlighting its network services. Rediffusion Y&R has created the campaign, which is targeted mainly at rural audiences.

Commenting about the campaign, Deepesh Jha, creative head  (Airtel), Rediffusion Y&R said, "The brief was to continue the network message in the mass/ rural context. The Airtel platform on network has been billed as "Atoot bandhan. Atoot Network.""

Jha however denies the new TVC is a sequel to the earlier 'Red Thread' campaign. He says, "This is a sequel to the earlier film only in the sense that we have used Shreyas (Talpade) again to portray our protagonist. The message of the previous film was that when one sets out from a village to a big city, he reassures folks back home that he will remain connected to his roots through the Airtel network. Here, Shreyas is playing the role of a man who is carrying the collective hopes of his village. His father, just reminds him of that to bolster his confidence and this is possible through the vast Airtel Network."

Added Jaideep Mahajan, creative head  (Airtel), Rediffusion Y&R, "This campaign plays on a very simple insight that when one man from a village makes it big, everybody back home has a lot of hopes pinned on him."

Watch the TVC here:

 

 

The TVC begins with Shreyas as a young MLA, who is about to enter the House of Parliament for the very first time. He is very apprehensive about entering the Parliament, when his phone rings and it is his father calling. His father holds out the phone outside his window and Shreyas hears the voices of his villagers, who are proud of him and have pinned their hopes on him. This gives him confidence and he proceeds inside the House of Parliament. 

When asked whether the recent rise in cause-based advertising poses a problem in terms of differentiation and brand recall, Mahajan reacts, "This is not cause based advertising; while it is set in the context of an elected representative, the film is a relationship story between father and son. Here the Network enables the father to understand the son’s apprehension and remind him of the journey that he has set out on. There is no issue of brand recall and Airtel through its network advertising, be it the old Shreyas or the kid with a toy phone, or even this one, always has a layered human message which sets Airtel advertising apart from the rest be it within the category of telecom or outside it."

The media mix for the campaign includes television, outdoor and innovative. The creative team includes Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, Deepesh Jha, Jaideep Mahajan and Shameem Mohammed. The film has been shot by Shoojit Sircar of Rising Sun Films.