To get India excited about 5G we showed them just what it could do.

We teleported 5G sceptics into the heart of the country’s must-watch IPL cricket coverage, demonstrating just how transformational Airtel’s faster than ever network would be.

We innovated on TV, selecting the medium for standout, scale as well as its ability to deliver frequency. And we worked with our media partners to integrate the message into the heart of the programming, demonstrating the power of 30x faster 5G and thrilling the nation.

In 2023, India’s 5G networks went live. All the leading telcos launched at the same time and the race was on to sign up as many of the half billion 4G users to the new technology.

But consumers weren’t convinced. Outspoken 5G sceptics took to social media to voice concerns and raise questions about the relevance and perceived value of 5G in their daily lives.

The 30x faster mobile internet speed unlocked by 5G was only worth it if it offered a real, everyday benefit. The launch of 4G had enabled video calls and buffer-less content streaming but 5G was just a lot faster.

Lack of a clear benefit was hitting upgrade rates (which would also require a new handset). Whereas before launch more than 35% said they wanted to sign up, post launch that figure had dropped to 25%.

While these challenges were faced by every telco, Airtel also faced an additional challenge. It’s position as India’s leading network was under threat from Jio, the single largest competitor brand.

Jio had spent billions more in 5G-spectrum acquisition and aggressive network deployment.

Pre-campaign research showed twice as many consumers now associated Jio with 5G and, with its offer of free streaming of the world’s biggest T20 cricket league, our key competitor had a strategic advantage that it was using to drive engagement among those who were willing to upgrade.

In months leading up to launch, Airtel embarked upon a series of limited-scale events for key opinion leaders:

● Recreation of Kapil Dev’s legendary“175 Not out innings” during 1983 Cricket WC semi-finals;

● Cloud-gaming experiences with popular influencers like Mortal & Mamba; and

● Immersive VR education experiences for schools.

Post-launch it was time to fire up enthusiasm at scale. We needed to use Airtel’s network speed to create an amazing, only-possible-with-5G demonstration.

We realised that any demonstration of the power of 5G would have far greater impact on TV than in digital channels.

Not only could the right TV environment deliver scale but TV was a very traditional environment. Formats had barely changed in decades, making any innovation far more powerful.

It was time to transform TV with a 5G-powered experience designed to get consumers upgrading with Airtel.

Our goal was to narrow the preference gap with Jio.

India’s passion for cricket, game-play debate and opinion is infamous.

It peaks every year during the world’s biggest T20 cricket league – the Indian Premier League – an eight-week sporting festival featuring the world’s best players.

We challenged ourselves to deliver a world-first fan experience using the mega-decibel platform provided by official IPL broadcaster, Star Sports.

How we could give fans a never-before-seen level of access to the IPL using Star Sports’ national platform and powered by Airtel 5G?

Since we could not get the fans on the pitch, what about making them part of the expert panels to discuss every game by teleporting them to the IPL studio?

Our big idea was to select one sceptic to represent each IPL team and use Airtel’s 5G network to put them live on TV.

They would appear in avatar form – teleported directly from their home cities.

Our strategy would be to create a series of interactions that only 5G could deliver, partnering with Star Sports to build an exclusive platform for a world-first experience that could run for eight weeks.

The key elements behind the experience would be:

• Identify through social media 5G sceptics. After analysing their passion for cricket and IPL, we’d select 10, one for each IPL team to become an Airtel 5G Plus Ultimate Fan.

• These fans would be teleported from remote studios as lifelike avatars to the Star Sports IPL production studio for real-time interactions with their favourite cricketers, experts and hosts – the first such experience in the history of live sports.

• Live telecast of the interaction between real human experts and fans avatar during high engagement IPL game play, would create huge impact and demonstrate first-hand the disruption to the sports viewing experience that 5G could unlock.

Working with Star Sports we turned our real-life fans into photorealistic avatars that made it clear they were not animated but did include sufficient detail to showcase 5G.

Each seamless live interaction – from locations across the country to the Star Sports Studio in Mumbai, with just a five-second gap from shoot to live broadcast – showcased the power of the Airtel network.

For two months, our avatars were regulars in the Star Sports Studio, interacting with legends of the game such as Irfan Pathan and Tom Moody.

Our Ultimate Fans featured on teasers on Star Sports network, they were the stars of tune-in notifications and text messages sent to Airtel customers and they were heavily promoted by programme hosts.

We also showcased the making of process using clips of the metahuman creation. Montage videos were amplified across social media, via owned channels, Star Sports and the 5G sceptics themselves.

We turned a nation of 5G sceptics into evangelists for Airtel’s network.

Our experience reached more than 30m cricket fans live on national TV.

More than eight million saw our Ultimate Fans on social media.

In total, we delivered more than two billion minutes of viewing time, every second enabled by Airtel 5G.

Earned media delivered millions more impressions and was worth US$ 1.5m.

And the impact on Airtel was massive:

• We didn’t just narrow the 5G “preference” gap between Airtel and Jio, we slammed it shut. Consumer research showed it shrinking from 26 pts pre-campaign to zero post campaign.

• We drove a 17% increase in Airtel’s active 5G user base.

• Airtel’s mobile average revenue per user rose by 3.2%.

By offering an unparalleled experience, we made Airtel the home of India’s 5G future.

The launch of 5G in India was a tipping point for half a billion people in India.

We needed a mechanism to reach as many potential customers for Airtel as possible. So we turned to the nation's most popular sport and owned the TV coverage where half a billion people would be tuning in.

No other medium gave us this potential reach, and our technological innovation - which was a first for Indian TV - transformed the watching experience of the Indian Premier League.