Leading global telecom company Bharti Airtel has launched its brand in Ghana by unveiling its new brand identity across its 16 African operations. The brand logo has a primary red colour - which officials of the company say reflects the warmth and vibrancy of the African continent - and it is also the master brand for the group’s 19 operations in Asia and Africa with over 200 million customers. The logo also has a curved symbol which will help ensure instant recognition across the diverse international markets. In addition to this, some distinct features in the area of sports and music have been created to further differentiate the brand from others in the Ghanaian market, Mr Andre Beyers Chief Marketing Officer of the Airtel Group, explained during the launch on Monday. Airtel is replacing Zain Ghana with the promise of delivering high quality customer benefits using the power of its global brand. Its campaign slogan is ‘feel free’. Chief Executive Officer (International) and Joint Managing Director of Bhati Airtel, Manoj Kohli, said “Airtel brings together our operations under a single, strong and unique brand identity.” “We can deliver more for our customers by operating as a single brand across Africa to fulfill our vision of providing affordable and innovative mobile services for all customers,” he confidently said. “We remain committed to taking our network deeper into Africa, ensuring our services touch everyone and bridge the digital divide in the continent,” Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, Philip Sowah, added. He was confident that “over the coming years, Airtel will win the hearts of customers in Ghana and emerge as one of [the] most admired brands of the continent.” Airtel has also announced its collaboration with Nokia to produce a new ultra low cost handset package which will effectively provide mobile phones free of charge to all new subscribers. The package, he said, would be priced at 40 GHS and would include a brand new Nokia 1280 mobile phone, a free sim card and the equivalent value of free Airtel talk time and SMS text messages. All Zain products would be rebranded with Zap being renamed as Airtel Money. Story by Dorcas Efe Mensah/myjoyonline.com/Ghana