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For anyone watching TV, it has become impossible to get away from the "DOCOMO" crooners, the funnyshaped ZooZoos or the "What an Idea Sirji" advertisements. Though the ad onslaught gets excessive at times, the words and characters tend to leave an imprint on the mind –­ exactly as they were designed to. The power of advertising may not force the viewer to choose the product or the operator, but it certainly creates a brand identity.

Whether it is in print or on television, radio and billboards, the slugfest for eyeballs has increased significantly over the years. Telecom operators, old and new, and handset vendors all want their punchlines to be seen and heard loud and clear. They have been putting in good money over the years to create that brand recall in order to gain subscribers.

Even the global downturn has not reined in this trend. "Sectors such as FMCG and telecom are daily necessities –­ one cannot do without bath soap or stop making phone calls due to recession. So, ad spends in sectors where business is growing will continue to grow despite the slowdown," explains Sanjay Gupta, chief marketing officer, Bharti Airtel.

For several years now, Bharti Airtel has been one of the biggest spenders on advertising along with Vodafone Essar, Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), Reliance Communications (RCOM) and Nokia. An AdEx India study indicates that the indexed growth of the volume of advertisements by telecom operators on television has increased from 100 per cent in 2006 to 177 per cent in 2009. Telecom advertisements constituted 3.13 per cent of the overall television ads in 2000, 5.24 per cent in 2005 and 6.7 per cent in 2009.

A comparison of the top five advertisers on TV in 2006 and 2009 shows that in 2006, Nokia Corporation was the most advertised company, followed by Bharti Airtel, RCOM, Hutchison Essar and Sony Ericsson. The pecking order changed in 2009, with Bharti Airtel taking over from Nokia as the top advertiser, followed by TTSL, Vodafone Essar, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Nokia. In the print media, the big five in 2006 were RCOM, BSNL, TTSL, Nokia and Bharti Airtel. In 2009, BSNL led the pack, followed by Nokia, RCOM, TTSL and Samsung India Electronics.

In 2009, according to market estimates (companies do not divulge their ad spends), Airtel reportedly invested around Rs 9.5 billion in advertising while Vodafone spent around Rs 7.5 billion. Even Idea, a comparatively smaller player, earmarked a budget of Rs 4 billion and BSNL around Rs 1 billion.

In terms of communication mediums, television has been the favourite (accounting for more than 50 per cent of the total ad spend) for telecom brands, especially those that have national reach. Brands that are strong in the southern and eastern regions rely heavily on regional television.

In comparison, players like Aircel or new entrants like MTS prefer to bet a large chunk of their media spends –­ almost 25 per cent –­ in out-of-home advertising. This is expected to be a crucial boost for the outdoor medium.

Over the past decade of the industry's growth, consumer awareness of telecom services has also grown. This, however, has happened slowly and in three stages. Initially, ad companies made extensive use of brand ambassadors in order to familiarise potential users with the company's products. Then the emphasis shifted to positioning the brand, and finally to the differentiation of networks and services.

In the early stages, Bharti Airtel used Shah Rukh Khan in its "Itni azadi aur kahaan" campaign while introducing the concept of flexi recharge. It also used a composition by music director A.R. Rahman as the hallmark tune of Airtel. Similarly, RCOM (then Reliance Infocomm) used cricketer Virender Sehwag while Rahul Dravid represented Vodafone Essar (then Hutch).

RCOM kicked off serious competition in the advertising and marketing space with its aggressive promotions during the cricket World Cup 2003. It was used as the launch pad for promoting Reliance IndiaMobile (RIM) services as the new national brand. The "Kar lo duniya mutthi mein" campaign moved Indian audiences with images of cricket, cheering mothers and heroic sons and was, according to analysts, the first true "punch" delivered in the telecom advertising arena.

Idea Cellular can be credited with kicking off the next phase of positioning. The telecom player used innovative brand ambassadors, like Sumo wrestlers, to make its point. Over time, as Airtel, Vodafone, RCOM and Idea gained recognition, the focus and content of the ads changed. Since these companies offered more or less similar services, it became important to emphasise the qualities that differentiated them. This change was most visible in 2004. Vodafone's "little boy and dog" ad appeared and became an instant hit. The iconic ad showed that wherever the boy went, the dog was sure to follow. This drove home the message that Vodafone was a telecom brand with dependable coverage. The ad had no celebrity icons, but it won ad agency Ogilvy & Mather more than 10 awards that year.

Airtel made its impression with its creative "Express yourself" campaign. The ad linked up the need for communication with the concept of freedom of expression, like "say yes", "say no", "speak up", "speak out". These opened up a whole realm of possibilities to "inspire", "conspire", "confess" and "negotiate". According to industry analysts, with this ad, the mobile service successfully delinked itself from being just a carrier to a larger platform with an even bigger proposition –­ "honesty of expression". TTSL also picked up the honesty theme by launching prepaid options like True Paid, building on Tata's legacy of honesty and integrity.

Vodafone's ZooZoo campaign was introduced during the Indian Premier League's second season as a special character created to convey a value-added service offering and became an overnight success. In fact, it garnered a huge fan following on social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut and, before long, the craze spread to merchandise like tshirts and mugs.

Bharti Airtel continued on its triedand-tested path, highlighting the "connecting" factor of technology. Its Special Five ad campaign featured a little girl, Anna, and her group of five friends who always worked collectively. Industry analysts lauded the ad, saying that in a market bombarded with complicated plans and discount schemes, Special Five stood out as a simple and straightforward offer.

Most of Idea Cellular's recent campaigns emphasise social causes. Its "Use mobile, not paper" campaign encourages users to use their mobile phone in lieu of paper for activities like reading newspapers, etc. This carries forward the brand's mantra, "What an idea!"

To promote its GSM services, RCOM resorted to using celebrity power. The operator rolled out a 360-degree campaign featuring Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan, with the tagline, "Don't wait, go for it." The message was simple: one could be spontaneous with a mobile phone and RCOM, as a brand, encouraged consumers to act on their thoughts instantly.

Aircel also chose the celebrity endorsement route. The operator's television commercials featured cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni, highlighting Aircel's suite of services such as easy access to Yahoo! search, sites such as makemytrip.com via GPRS on the mobile handset. The tagline read: "It's time to move on." This reflected Aircel's confidence in making its presence felt in the sector by positioning its services as faster and easier to use than what the competition had to offer.

Similarly, for its GSM services, marketed under the DOCOMO brand, TTSL relied on a simple model. Like Airtel, it caught the audience's attention with a catchy jingle and the tagline: "Why walk when we can dance together?" According to Draft FCB Ulka, the agency behind the brand, the idea was to associate the brand with the thought "do". The brand tune was created when the logo was created, much before any of the other communications. Ram Sampat, the composer, wanted the tune to be proactive and hence the use of the word "do", also the first syllable of the brand –­ DOCOMO.

In this race of attracting the user, the incumbents, BSNL and MTNL, have been far outpaced by the private players. Traditionally, their ads were simple, often using the colours of their respective logos and accompanied by a brief description of their offerings. While MTNL has stuck to this model, BSNL has, over the past two or three years, made use of celebrities such as actors Preity Zinta and Deepika Padukone.

Of late, BSNL has been peddling its 3G services extensively. A recent ad shows Deepika Padukone highlighting the main features of the service with a special emphasis on price. The message is simple: the speed of 3G at pocket-friendly rates.

The new players have also been gaining a lot of attention. Virgin Mobile has a clear focus on the youth segment. In its two-week launch campaign, the company aired several commercials where youngsters found ways to come out of sticky situations. More recently, the operator has striven to display its wares in a lighter vein. A common element in the ad has been the main features of the tariff plan and Virgin Mobile's tagline: "Think Hatke.

Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL), on the other hand, has so far stuck to the print medium. SSTL's ads are simple, comprising a vivid red background and a brief description of its services, ranging from high-speed data cards to mobile services at low tariffs.

On the other end, Unitech Wireless has made full use of all media –­ from TV and radio to hoardings on buses, at malls and airports –­ to reach out to its audience. Armed with the brand philosophy "empower people", its ads talk about "Ab mera number hai", "Eega naan number", "It's my time" –­ in Hindi, Kannada and other Indian languages. Its television ads show young people in real-life situations, signalling to the world that their time has come.

All in all, the past decade has been an eventful one for telecom advertising. Given the accelerated scale of user growth, advertising budgets will only increase as operators try to cut the clutter and differentiate themselves from the others.