It''s a dog''s life: Hutch''s pug survives, the brand goes
19 Sep 2007
New Delhi:
Finally, Hutch is now, officially, Vodafone-Essar. The brand migration from Hutch
to Vodafone was completed on Wednesday, with the pug that endeared the mobile
company to the hearts of its consumer, having survived the re-branding exercise
as its brand ambassador. India
is now the 26th country where Vodafone has operations. Vodafone operates across
five continents, with 40 partner networks, serving over 200 million customers
worldwide. According
to a Vodafone-Essar statement, the re-branding marks a significant chapter for
Vodafone in its evolution as a dynamic and ever-growing brand. The
brand change will happen over the next few weeks, and will be unveiled nationally
through a high profile campaign that will span all important media formats. According
to Asim Ghosh, managing director, Vodafone-Essar, "We''ve had a great innings
as Hutch in India, and today marks a new beginning for us. Not as a departure
from the fundamentals that created Hutch, but an acceleration into the future
with Vodafone''s global expertise." Company
Marketing and New Business Director Harit Nagpal termed the transition as probably
the largest ever undertaken in the country, saying that the exercise is even larger
than Hutch''s own previous brand transitions. The brand touches over 35 million
customers, across 400,000 shops and a few thousand of employees of the company
as well as that of its business associates. With
the pug surviving, what remains to be seen, how the old dog now learns new tricks.