Airtel drives Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 race partnership with new campaign

Following Airtel's race partnership with the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team for the Formula One Airtel Indian Grand Prix, the brand has released a campaign featuring seven-time F1 champion  Michael Schumacher, and his team mate Nico Rosberg.

This campaign features three TVCs, two of which are currently on air. The films have been shot at the Silverstone race track in England and have been created by Taproot India and Encompass.

In one film, Schumacher is shown testing his Mercedes AMG Petronas car on the race track. He makes an unexpected return to the pits, which confuses his technical team. As he gets off his car in the team garage, his phone rings to the tune, 'Joh mera hai woh tera hai'. Schumacher answers the call, which turns out to be from a fan. The fan explains that she is a huge fan and wants to meet him and his pit crew. Schumacher surprises the fan by telling her that she could meet the pit-crew and also be a part of it. The team principal, Ross Brawn, then questions Schumacher about this.

The film ends with a voice over explaining how fans can participate in a contest that can make them a part of the Mercedes AMG Petronas team pit crew at the Airtel Indian Grand Prix 

In the film featuring both Schumacher and Rosberg, both drivers are shown analysing their Formula 1 cars. Schumacher's phone then rings - again to Airtel's new theme song. He answers the call. The caller wants to speak to his team mate, Rosberg. The caller wants to be a part of Rosberg's pit crew, to which the German says, "Of course you can be a part of my pit crew".  The film ends with the same voice over from the first film.

Commenting on the film, Agnello Dias, co-founder and chief creative officer, Taproot, said, ""The brief was to communicate the fact that any lay person has a chance to become part of the Mercedes Benz team. And also to cement Airtel's association with F1. This was a unique experience for us. We worked as creative collaborators with Encompass."

The campaign articulation for this year's Airtel Indian Grand Prix is 'Let your heart race'. The contest to be part of the pit crew of the F1 team will be run on facebook/airtelf1.

The TVCs will be adapted to print, outdoor and other media including digital. Airtel will also launch a F1 mobile app, which will bring real time race updates and specific F1 content to customers. The app will be available soon on Google play and iTunes stores.

Credits
Agencies: Taproot India and Encompass
Creative: Agnello Dias and Roshan Abbas
Airtel team: Varun Bali and Bharat Bambawale
Film director: Sabal Singh Shekawat
Production team: Srila Chatterjee, Shanta Rana, Sonali Ghosh
Production house: Big Picture Company
Account management: Sukrit, Singh, Manan Mehta, Nupur Jain, Naved Punjabi,
Media agency: Madison