Ogilvy Africa bags lucrative PR job for new Zain owners

By Patrick Githinji

New mobile service provider entrant, Bharti Airtel has appointed Ogilvy Africa to provide brand-building services for its African operations.

"Ogilvy Africa will guide Airtel’s long-term brand building across the African continent and provide overall creative direction, and media planning, besides executing campaigns in each of its African markets," Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

However, the company did not disclose the account size, or its marketing and brand-building expenditure for its African operations.

Ogilvy Africa was previously engaged with Zain in planning and media buying across Africa.

Prior to Oglivy, ZK Advertising was handling Zain’s campaigns. Bharti Airtel completed the acquisition of Zain’s mobile operations spread over 15 countries across Africa, on June 8. Airtel is expected to launch its own brand in the 15 African countries by the end of October.

Specialist business

Ogilvy Africa is a subsidiary of the global marketing communications services group WPP, and it has set up a specialist pan-African business unit called Team Airtel.

"This unit will exclusively deliver integrated marketing services- Advertising, media buying, market research and public relations to Airtel across the continent through its existing network of offices," Bharti said.

Ogilvy Kenya CEO Koome Mwambia confirmed the reports of the marketing services deal with Airtel, adding that details of a central as well as the setting up of country teams constituting ‘Team Airtel’ were ongoing.