Why Reliance should not have named their CDMA telecom venture RELIANCE India Mobile

Relianace pre-RIM was a very well respected brand and had a history of having brought wealth to its investors.Thus the idea of a brand extension while launching its nationwide mobile service would have seemed natural,thus came along Reliance India Mobile.

Initially having the Reliance name associated with the service brought in a lot of curiosity as customers were eager to see what this famous business house had to offer.Reliance made huge and well publicised promises of offering the lowest cost mobile service in the country."Making a call should be cheaper than sending a post-card","40p to any Reliance phone in the country","local calling cheaper than a landline" and many other such plans were announced.

It was only when the service was launched that people started coming to know about the additional unpublicised charges, the huge unjustified bills and the failing Dhirubhai Ambani Entrepreneur scheme.RELIANCE had failed to deliver on its promises.All of this left a bad taste in the customer's mouth.The service took some time to stabilise but by that time, the damage had already been done.Even though Reliance today is one of the largest telecom players,the brand name still has to recover from the severe beating it got initially.

This faliure to deliver has not only damaged the reputation of RIM but also of Reliance itself.The brand name Reliance is today associated with hidden costs, bad service quality and poor customer service.It would have been a better idea to launch their mobile service without the Reliance name associated with it,as a different brand altogether.That way Reliance could have continued to be the strong brand that it was and created a new brand in the telecom catagory.

More branding stories to come.