Bharti’s talent hunt 'Airtel Rising Stars' rings in revenue in Africa

KOLKATA: Some six years after it first showed a commercial where two children squeeze through international barriers to play soccer, Bharti Airtel says the beautiful game has helped it connect with the African youth and boost revenues.

‘ Airtel Rising Stars’ soccer talent hunt campaign has helped India’s largest mobile phone company post a near 40% jump in data traffic across its troubled African operations over the past nine months. “Airtel Rising Stars initiative has given us a platform to connect with the African youth who are a huge driver of data services,” Andre Beyers, chief marketing officer ( Africa), Bharti Airtel, told ET.

“Our football content revenue has grown by millions of dollars, especially as the African youth is increasingly accessing our football platforms over our 3G network,” he added.

The Sunil Mittal-promoted telco’s revenue growth in Africa has been lower than expected, but company executives said the Rising Stars campaign has triggered a 20% growth in its data ARPU to $1.2 (Rs 66 approx) with local youth guzzling its football content.

Youth comprise a meaty 38% of Airtel’s 67 million customers in Africa. A spokesman of global brand research agency Millward & Brown said its brand health studies revealed a high awareness of Airtel Rising Stars executions and activations in Africa with an estimated 67 million claim to be aware of the communication.

“From a brand point of view, the data indicated a positive impact of Airtel Rising Stars in building a stronger brand relationship with the youth in markets like Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia and Congo,” he said.

While CMO Beyers declined to reveal specific revenue or data growth numbers for Airtel in Africa, company executives said data usage across Airtel’s 17-nation African footprint shot up 99% after the rollout of the Rising Stars brand campaign. They say that with soccer is gaining popularity rapidly in India and data usage too on the rise, the company now looks to replicate the African success with the Rising Stars campaign in the home country.


“Football, particularly the European leagues, is getting increasingly popular with Indian youth and the Airtel Rising Stars platform gives us a great opportunity to connect with them,” a top Airtel executive said, requesting not to be named.

“Data traffic has more than doubled in the past one year,” the person said. The Airtel Rising Stars campaign in India promises a 7-day training camp at Manchester United ground to 12 under-16 talents from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It has close to 2 million Facebook likes.

Brands specialists like Harish Bijoor, however, are sceptical about the mass success of such initiatives in India where data services consumption remains largely “corporate-driven”.

“I’m not surprised about African youth’s appetite for football content delivered over a 3G network, and the same thing can work for Airtel in India too, provided the mass data consumption profile changes from corporate-driven to consumer-driven as is the case in most western markets and Africa, too,” Bijoor said. He said 3G rates will have to come down for a consumer-driven data consumption pattern to emerge in the country.

“Indian telcos still rely largely on corporates to grow data revenues, unlike in several African markets where the common consumer drives data consumption since 3G rates are lower,” he said.

Industry analysts believe India’s move to regulate 3G roaming pacts between the top three mobile phone companies — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular — in regions where they don’t own third-generation airwaves could hurt the pan-India traction of 3G data services.