Mobile phone firm gears up for fourth brand name

Zain Kenya is set to rebrand to Bharti Airtel, the name of its Indian telecom owner later this month, according to insiders.

This might be the most expensive rebranding exercise by the company considering that in 2004 it spent $30 million to rebrand from Kencell to Celtel and four years later in 2008, it spent $40 to rebrand from Celtel to Zain.

In June, India’s Bharti Airtel officials met in Kampala, Uganda with Zain Africa chief executives to map a re-branding strategy. Later it appointed Ogilvy Africa BV to spearhead the process.

Ogilvy Africa set up a specialist pan-African business unit called ‘Team Airtel’. As part of its job, the unit is to exclusively deliver integrated marketing services –advertising, media buying, market research and public relations – to Airtel across the continent with its existing network of offices.

Team Airtel also include The Brand Union, responsible for brand migration, Millward Brown for market research, along with Hill & Knowlton and Ogilvy PR for all public relations.

According to Zain, unlike previous re-branding exercises, when its predecessors entered the market using above-the-line strategies, Bharti Airtel is adopting corporate social responsibility as its entry strategy.

The acquisition of Zain was Bharti Airtel’s third attempt to enter the largely untapped African market after twice failing in merger talks with South African telecom major MTN.