The telecom company has planned a slew of marketing initiatives for India which are primarily aimed at promoting the brand in the interiors of the country.

The strategy was quietly kicked-off a few months ago, when BT decided to woo Indians residing in two states, Punjab and Gujarat, into making more and more calls to the UK through a contest. The two states account for a bulk of the Indians residing in the UK. However, as the volume of calls made from India to the UK has not increased ``at a very encouraging pace'', BT is now drumming up demand through the campaign.

``We've launched an IDD stimulation project across India but focussed in these two states. Our motto is to encourage people to talk and we are telling them that its good to talk,'' said carrier marketing manager, BT Asia-Pacific,Sandra Yiap.

The contest was launched in early in November 1998 and ran right up to April 15, 1999 when winners were announced through a draw of lots. Any person who spoke for more than six minutes to UK was eligible to enter the contest, which offered awards like a Maruti 800, and an Akai home theatre system.

``We got 3,000 applicants which means a minimum of 18,000 minutes of calls made to the UK. What matters is not the revenue that we have made through the exercise, but the brand value that we have created,'' said Yiap.

Apart from one national magazine, the entire ad-campaign for the contest was carried out through the local media in Punjab and Gujarat. ``Our aim was to keep it simple. We have carried out a similar exercise in China and India being an important market for us, are planning a series of such programmes here,'' she said.

Coming soon: a scheme to facilitate cricket fans to get in touch with the Indian players while they are in UK for the World Cup. In future, such campaigns would becarried out jointly with VSNL, MTNL or any private basic or mobile service provider. ``We want to work with Indian partners and not alone. This was the first campaign and hence we did it on our own,'' she added. The fact that the first marketing exercise was plotted and planned at the Singapore office of BT adds credibility to Yiap's claim that India is a strategic centre for the global telecom major.