Idea Cellular's Mumbai launch branded as world's 'largest single-city launch'

22 August 2008

Mumbai: Bringing up the dozen on the scoreboard for Idea Cellular in terms of service areas, the cellular service provider's rollout in the city is being hailed as the world's largest single city launch, ever.

The launch covers an initial network of well over a thousand cellular sites, notching up an outlay of more than Rs800 crore. Idea's Mumbai network will utilise the 1800 Mhz frequency, a pooled core switching network that has 2.75G capabilities and Edge services.

Ideas everywhere: The 'inclusive' ad campaign
Idea Cellular's out of home advertising campaign, which broke in parallel with the launch, focuses on individual's cellphone number being linked to his identity, or where he is from. 

Mumbai, with its population of over 13 million, can arguably be called a city of migrants, having grown on huge population influxes, with the first being back in the 1600s when the city was first founded as a port city, and swelling to one million by 1906. The spirit of the city has been brought forth in the campaign, as the common notion for the city as a melting pot that weaves all people into one cosmopolitan fabric.

Praveen Kumar Vadhera, country head of out-of-home Services company 141 Wall Street Bates, which is the OOH  arm of Bates 141, said the campaign capitalises on the spirit of Mumbai and its unity in diversity, by defining the Mumbaikar's identity. Using a simple rationale, the campaign seeks to strike a chord with Mumbaikars using a single premise – if you have a Mumbai number (cell number) how can you be from anywhere else?

The campaign is in stark opposition to the large decibel anti-north Indian campaign by two prominent political parties, who seek to build their political fortunes basis the ethnicity of sons of the soil.