Airtel Ghana has been honoured with the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana’s (CIMG) most prestigious and coveted award - Marketing Oriented Organization of the Year.

The company also picked up the Brand Activation Program of the Year for its Airtel Rising Stars programme, which is a sports talent initiative that seeks to discover and nurture talented male and female footballers under 17 years.

The two awards were presented to Airtel Ghana at this year’s CIMG Awards event held at the Banquet Hall, State House in Accra.

The CIMG Awards is held annually to celebrate and honour businesses and individuals who have excelled and exemplified themselves in strategically marketing their products, services and brands.

The Awards recognize Airtel Ghana’s strategic marketing approach which encompasses its customer driven market insights, marketing strategy development, corporate reputational management as well as Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.

It also aims at identifying the organization that has clearly and successfully communicated its core brand values to the market. The corporate brand is loved and trusted by customers.

The Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, Lucy Quist said: "We are excited to be recognized by such a prestigious organization as the CIMG. We are even more excited because these awards are a testimony that our marketing drive is not only recognized within our telecoms industry but across all industries in Ghana. That is a remarkable achievement by any standards.”

“As we strive to bring more innovative products, services and initiatives to the marketplace, our focus remains on providing our customers with opportunities to make positive change by combining technological advances with cost-efficient solutions. These awards highlight our dedication to pushing the envelope on strategic and creative marketing,” she added. She thanked CIMG and Airtel customers for the recognition.

The prestigious accolades are testaments to Airtel’s commitment to its customers and the success of the company’s brand campaigns and activations. Notable among such campaigns include Make your Change, Browse Chaw, Airtel Insurance, Airtel Money, Airtel Rising Stars and Airtel Touching Lives.

With its unrivalled initiatives in Corporate Social Responsibility, Airtel Ghana has received a number of distinguished awards this year. The company won the prestigious ChangeMaker award from the Bharti Foundation (Bharti Airtel’s CSR body), having come tops among 20 Airtel International operating countries, 17 of which are from Africa. The first CSR award this year was the Corporate Social Responsibility Company of the Year conferred on Airtel Ghana at the Ghana Telecom Awards, organized by Mobile World. In total Airtel Ghana has won 3 separate awards for CSR alone this year.

These honours reaffirm the widespread recognition of Airtel Ghana as one of the most preferred brands among consumers as of August 2014.

Airtel is the fourth largest telco in Ghana, with a total subscriber base of 3,756,547 comprising over 12.72% market share, and data customers of 2,066,155, which represents 55% of its total customer base.