Hutch turns to Vodafone today

Sep 21: Hutchinson-Essar, the third largest cellular network in India has now transformed into Vodafone-Essar since today as five months ago Hutchinson had sold its entire share to Vodafone, the largest telecom networking company in $11.1b. The changes in the name has officially announced on Sep 19, 2007.

‘Pink is now red as Hutch is Vodafone in India from September 21, 2007, officially announced in Mumbai. But it would be a touch task to overshadow a strong brand image of Hutch in its subscribers mind, as it is assuming because Hutch has performed superb in the last five years after the occupying its share from Essar.

"People have no idea how important telecom has become in India. We have 400,000 recharge coupon outlets, thousands of billboards and 10,000s of shop signs. All of that will change literally change over days," said Asim Ghosh, Managing Director of Vodafone Essar for India.

To overshadow the Hutch image, Vodafone has planned insistent audiovisual campaign for next few months. According to Market agencies, “The entire campaign could be more than worth Rs 300 crore”, while the management says its far more modest.

The company has to change the mind of nearly 35 million customers and also the logo and banner of 4,00,000 shops across India. Its Marketing and New Business Director, Harit Nagpal, said the transition was probably the largest ever undertaken in the country.

“It is even larger than our own previous brand transitions as it touches over 3.5 crore customers, across four-lakh shops and thousands of our own and our business associate employees,” said Harit Nagpal Marketing and New Business Director of Vodafone.

Speaking over rebranding, Asim Ghosh said, "It will without the question is the biggest brand change even in the quantitative terms, largest brand expenditure indeed in India. But certain figures are floating around in the press, it is a small fraction of that.”

“We want to the top cellular service provider by 2010," said Ghosh.