Interesting … Zong is betting that a offering simplicity of call features and calling plans will differentiate it by cutting through the clutter of packages. The concept of this ad may not be original but I think this is a good approach.
Interesting to see the two rivals advertising side-by-side.
Can you tell where is this? Easy enough as there is a hint in the picture.: photo courtsey of Lahore Metro Blogs. Read full story here to see what happens when sun goes down.
Here’s an interesting marketing trend inspired by mobile phone culture. Building on the popularity of Text messaging advertisers are using the texting acronyms (omg, bff, g2g etc) in their ads. I’m sure phone companies are enjoying this attention — after all data has become one of their major revenue producers. I have also noticed this in magazines. However all this new vocabulary may leave parents confused and that is not exactly what the advertisers want. This goes back to the generation gap post I did a while ago. A recent Wall Street Journal article notes this trend emphasizes that it is important to explain the shorthand, otherwise the ad will miss a large number of its audience!
Young adults 18 to 24 years old spend about 32 minutes a day texting, according to the Yankee Group, a research company. The texting phenomenon has given rise to acronyms like “paw” (parents are watching), “lol” (laughing out loud), “g2g” (got to go) and “ooc” (out of control).
Some of the ads that use the shorthand have drawn a big audience. Cingular’s spot has attracted more than 1 million views on YouTube thus far. The ad, for an unlimited texting plan offered by the carrier, featured a mom questioning her daughter, Bethann, about all the texting she was doing. Bethann’s response: “o-m-g, i-n-b-d.” (Translation: “Oh my gosh, it’s no big deal.”) She explains to her mom that she is texting her “bff Jill.” The ad has spawned numerous imitations on YouTube.
Frito-Lay, McDonald’s, AT&T and others have tried to demonstrate their street cred to the teenage set by using text-messaging abbreviations in their commercials. An Internet video ad for McDonald’s in Korea shows two men warming up their vocal cords to sing the McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it” jingle. At the end of the video, a voice-over chimes in: “Are you ready?” The screen reads: “r u ready?”
Almost after a year of its arrival to Pakistan, China Mobile is making a big impact on the telecom market of Pakistan. With Paktel’s new Zong campaign it has taken a fresh, bold and humorous approach to marketing. The choice of name is interesting - a bit “Chinese” it seems. I found the ad hilarious (Himmat hey to pass kro warna bardasht kro). No doubt, the bar has been raised.
Another notable point was that the pre-launch buzz was created by using quite a few channels including social networking. The TV campaign has been well received as well. See the clip below.
The last promotions and service packages caused a big surge in subscribers to Paktel. Let’s see how this one goes!
Mobilink offers SMS marketing as one of the business services. The page on the MobilinkWorld site boasts of the 20+ million subscriber base. This service allows up to 1o million messages to be sent. So if one has the funds and wants to reach tens of millions of mobilink customers, its that easy. And the 10 million limit does not seem to be an absolute one, I am certain there are ways around that if the price is right.
What about subscriber rights? Can the subscribers opt-out? In the terms and conditions its mentioned that “Subscribers will be given the option to opt out of receiving broadcast messages“.
This is a typical case of the provider keeping the control and limiting choices for subscribers. I am not singling out Mobilink but using it as an example. It sounds to me that only after the subscribers start getting these messages they are given the option of taking some action to stop future messages. What action is needed for customers to avoid getting these messages? Where is the policy defined?
I have been observing a trend of aggressive marketing and advertisement by the mobile operators in Pakistan. 50 paisa, 3 paisa, 1 paisa. Trying to one-up other competitors, the advertisements emphasise the lowest possible rate to grab attention. In reality the low rates being advertised come with many conditions. To figure it out one has to read the fine print carefully. I think this is unfair to the consumers and we need to criticize this trend which some may characterize as deceptive marketing. Have a look at these sample advertisements (click to enlarge) - good luck with the fine print!
Over the years mobile service packages have become difficult to understand. It used to be pre-pay & postpay and in-network & out-of-network. Now there is the option of lower price for pre-defined numbers (usually in-network) such as family and friends. Then there is the billing duration which used to be 1 minute in good old days. Not anymore. The rates advertised are usually based on lowest billing duration (say 30 seconds) and may only be valid during certain times (e.g. Paktel’s Power Hours are 7 pm – 10 pm) . The billing duration for the same package can vary for in-network and out of network calls!
Given all of the complexity, it is difficult for a common person to easily understand and compare these plans. I mean who has time to analyse all of this (except your truly)? My guess is that most of the time people get upset but carry on with their busy lives. Wouldn’t it be fair if all the operators advertisements included the rate for 1 minute call clearly? How about being more up-front and making the fine print a bit less fine?
I think this problem is common to all operators, therefore all of them should share the responsibility to create a baseline standard. Better to fix this now before the regulator (PTA) is asked to step in.
This new series will bring you interesting telecom and technology news bytes and headlines from around the world. Please share comments on whether this is something you’d like to read on a regular basis.
Cell phone helps Japanese stay in shape. NTT DoCoMo introduced a “Fitness Phone,” designed to help the user stay healthy — and avoid bad breath (just breathe into the phone to get a reading). The primary target groups are said to be fat-fighting middle-aged businessmen and young women on diets. Sounds like a great combination of market segments to me! See a video demo here.
China Mobile and other Hong Kong telecom stock peaked recently because of 3G expectations. Telecom stocks also gained after the Chinese regulator said it is relaxing the pricing and other policies in the mainland’s fifth 3G license auction. “Talk in the market that China will issue the 3G licenses soon and restructure the sector drove telecom shares higher,” said Jackson Wong, investment manager at Tanrich Securities.
India is planning 50,000 WiMAX based Internet kiosks. BSNL is set to issue tenders for setting up 50,000 Common Service Centres catering to semi-urban and rural areas across the country. The project has a target date of Aug 2008 and is expected to get a special spectrum clearance. BSNL has bigger plans for WiMAX rollout in urban areas as well.
Adobe released new version of its flash player for cell phones, Adobe Flash Lite 3. This version promises to bring the quality of live video on cellular phones closer to that of video on computers. More than a billion Flash-enabled devices are expected to be available by 2010. Nokia is betting on this new version to bring rich content such as videos and animated ringtones to its phones. More here.
Vodafone is increasing its push to India and Chinaamong other countries. Vodafone CEO Sarin’s main strategy is to increase Vodafone’s presence in countries that are driving regional economic growth and gain a majority stake in the right companies. Vodafone has majority stakes in wireless firms in India, South Africa and Romania. Is Pakistan part of Vodafone’s plans? No indications so far.
Disney will shut down its branded cellphone service. It had planned to sell phones featuring Disney content and services aimed at children and their parents. However, MVNO model failed to take off. Disney will instead license its content to other carriers.
Related to the previous thread about PTCL Rebranding, here’s a clip of an ad which focuses on their new identity and new logo. Nice effort but after a month or so of this “New Beginning”, more serious challenges have surfaced for PTCL than rebranding. The next year is crucial and will make or break PTCL. Lets hope for the best.
As communication technologies improve and number of mobile phone subscribers grow in Pakistan, unwanted telemarketing and sales calls and text messages are fast becoming a concern. We have talked about the lack of identity protection measures and almost no regard about one’s personal information in Pakistan before. The recent PTA warning about unwanted and fraudulent SMS was also discussed here. Other bloggers have also written about the marketers who invade people’s privacy and waste time.
Many developed countries have taken steps such as “Do Not Call” databases which prohibits telemarketers to call those people who are on the Do Not Call list. Facing pressure from public, India’s telecom regulator has set up a Do Not Call system to fight against unsolicited telemarketers (See this article for details). It will be interesting to see if it can make a difference there. Usually such Do Not Call systems require significant effort to regulate and punish the offenders, which can make it difficult to work in Pakistan.
Another related problem is that South Asia is the home to a large number of outbound call centers. Many of these unsolicited calls in US or Euorpe originate from abroad … often the accent of the callers provides a hint about the location of the caller. I have personally received unwanted calls and text messages from South Asia, and that too at odd hours.
With mobile advertising on its way, this situation will get a lot worse - so brace yourself and take precautionary measures to safeguard your information. First awareness is the key: Pakistani bloggers need to continue to spread the word. Next, take charge of your information. Ask banks, phone companies and other financial institutions about their data privacy policies and demand that they should not sell your data or else you will take your business elsewhere. It MAY work!
The recent issue of FLARE has a good article about the pain of spam sms and unsolicited calls. Excerpts:
With 63 million subscribers currently and growing rapidly every month, telephony in Pakistan is witnessing an unimaginable boom but carries one terrible downside “Unsolicited calls”. Banks are the biggest offenders. Car loans, home loans, personal loans, even loans to pay off other loans, and an unending list of unsolicited calls subscribers receive daily. More terribly, the tele-sales persons have complete personal and private information about subscribers, including name, business and personal contact details, the bank where you have maintained your account, your company name and even balance of your account and the transactions you have made recently.
“Once your cellular number is exposed to tele-marketers, you will find that there are more calls you get each day, furthermore. A notable increase in the ratio of marketing calls will be seen once you have posted a positive response to any package. This gives a clear feeling that these telemarketing companies share their data with-in their departments or even with other telemarketing companies likely to be based on barter system” said Ali Hassan, Senior Professor at a local university. Banks also arrange data from other sources as well; hotels, restaurants, online communities, directories and yellow pages are the big sources.
In this post we take a look at the role of advertising in building brand equity, using the case of Wateen’s recent product launch. Advertising is paid form of marketing promotion in which the sponsor is advertised and the message is controlled. Brand Equity refers to the value built-up in a brand. It is measured on a scale determining the extent of customer awareness. Besides awareness, brand equity is also directly related to the consumer’s experience with the brand itself. This experience finally decides the fate of product in terms of success and brand loyalty or failure within the potential target audience.
Within Marketing Mix i.e. Target market and 4P’s (Product, Price, Placement, Promotion), Product refers to the promise made to the customer or solution provided to the customer. Value is the perceived difference between the costs spent by the customer against achieved benefits. The lower the cost in relation to the benefits the lower is the value.
Hence, marketing communication or advertising during the product launch is a strategic decision and must be handled with care. Launching the product or service aggressively without practically placing it or making it available might bring critically negative impact on brand reputation. Such campaign destroys instead of building a brand. It is just like a promise made to the customer and then not being fulfilled. Such mistake at launch stage, specifically in case of a product like WiMax which still have to struggle a lot in getting mass awareness and with delivery issues, can severely disrupt the company’s and brand’s image within early adaptors of the product.
Wireless week has a special report out on mobile advertising- its challenges and rewards. As with any new technology, business is trying to make sense of what will work. The report points out that “advertisers are familiar with working with print, TV, radio and the Internet as separate entities. But mobile networks can bring together the Internet, video, text, gaming, music and more.” An important point as emphasized in the report is: Advertisers want to buy audiences and not technology.
I am including an excerpt about the sms based advertising in the US. I consider this approach relevant to Pakistan’s market.
Text-based campaigns and WAP sites have become the two main avenues for brands to reach mobile subscribers.
One of the companies involved in text-based advertising is qtags, a Houston-based mobile marketing company that uses short codes to provide mobile interactive content, including promotions and coupons. Its clients include Accenture, NAS Recruitment, Fidelity Investments, Toyota, Verizon Wireless, American Express, CITI and Hewlett Packard.
“Our goal,” says founder Allison Gower, “is to help the consumer control their advertising.” Qtags connects consumers and brands off-line and online, Gower says, by making content interactive via SMS. An example is texting a keyword like “Verizon” to qtags’ shortcode, 78247, and the user gets information about jobs available at Verizon Wireless. The texts are saved online. Many of the current campaigns are job recruitment related.
The service can help brand names build communities of consumers who have an interest in their products, Gower says. The overall service is free of advertising although community sites might have sponsored sites.
Mobile provides context of time and place, she says. When someone enters a store and sees a promotion, a consumer can text to get specials listed on their phone.
Thanks to TM for sharing these at his blog. I loved these ads for their topic, message, presentation, and the fresh approach to marketing. As Atif pointed out with a few other ad campaigns covered here and here, this is a great way to provide a public service message and promote your brand. The fact that it is a departure from the usual ads in Pakistan makes it even more fun.
You can see additional ads in this series here.
This blog was started by Babar Bhatti to share and analyse new and interesting developments in Pakistan Telecom industry. More ...
Mobile News
