Air India to hire consulting firm for image makeover

New Delhi: State-owned carrier Air India plans to hire an international consulting firm to give it a branding makeover for the October Commonwealth Games and help promote it together with the soon-to-be opened international terminal at the Delhi airport, two airline officials said.
The carrier, operated by National Aviation Co. of India Ltd, has shortlisted Australian brand consultant Cato Purnell Partners to help it in the exercise, said one of the two officials, neither of whom wanted to be named.
ir India, the official airline partner of the Commonwealth Games, will ferry athletes, officials and tourists to the biggest sporting event hosted by India in almost three decades, but is yet to start a visible campaign to push its brand in any of the participating nations.
“We have lost out. It was high time we attained mileage out of it. Our intention is to get a firm which has experience in sports, airlines and airports branding globally,” the airline official quoted above said.
The proposal is still under consideration. The hiring of the agency, which may cost as much as $1.6 million (Rs7.25 crore), has to be greenlighted by the newly constituted board of the national carrier, said the second Air India official. The board is trying to turn around an airline burdened by losses and debt.
If hired, the consultant would be charged with preparing a broad strategy on how to leverage the airline’s brand identity, put up signages and outdoor billboards and design the uniform of flight crew, among other tasks.
12/05/10 Tarun Shukla/Livemint

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Categories: Foreign May 2010, NACIL May 2010, New May 2010