Airtel goes outdoor to promote free calls on roaming offer

The one month outdoor campaign targets the roaming population by strategically choosing locations at the highways and key incoming and outgoing routes over 210 towns across Maharashtra, using 127 touch points.

Airtel offers free roaming between Maharashtra and Gujarat circles as these are the busiest travel routes in the region. Targeting the roaming population, Airtel has gone out on the streets to promote the offer using the outdoor medium.

The highlight of the campaign is the selection of specific locations to place the outdoor creatives, including highways, key incoming and outgoing routes from Mumbai such as the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the Mumbai-Gujarat Highway, along with the Gujarati pockets inside Mumbai (such as Matunga East, Ghatkopar, Borivali and Kandivali, among others).

The creatives of the campaign are simple with a message that reads 'Free Roaming Mumbai se Gujarat.' It displays an image of a boy talking on a phone, standing in front of a direction post. The arrows on the post point towards different directions which communicate the campaign message that roaming is free between Maharashtra and Gujarat regions. Each arrow is marked with different place names such as Gujarat, Mumbai, Pune, Goa and Nashik, to show the various regions.

Moreover, jingles about the Free Roaming offer are also played at the state transport bus stands for around 60 times in a day on the Mumbai-Pune route to increase awareness amongst the travelling target group (TG).

The one month campaign kicked off on June 10. The OOH campaign has been executed by Madison Outdoor Media (MOMS), the outdoor unit of Madison, across more than 210 towns in Maharashtra. About 127 touch points have been used for the campaign over various media vehicles such as hoardings, bus shelters, and train and bus wraps.

Interestingly, in the past one month, Airtel has initiated three different campaigns using the outdoor space, including Any Time Net (ATN) in Mumbai and Aapla Pack in the rest of the Maharashtra circle.

The ATN campaign, started in the first week of June in Mumbai, targeted the mobile youth and those who need to access the internet on their mobile phones anytime, anywhere. The creative shows people happily using internet on their mobiles, in uncomfortable places such as crowded trains and buses.

Niraj Ved, regional director, Madison Media OOH, says, "The campaigns needed to reach across various strata of the target group. Hence, the media used in every campaign had a specific purpose. In the Free Roaming campaign, we picked Gujarati-dominated areas in Mumbai like Ghatkopar and Borivali and announced that the roaming is free if they travel to Gujarat using an Airtel number.

"In the ATN campaign, we focused on transit media since the consumers in Mumbai are always on the move. The use of buses, trains and bus shelters was pre dominant."