October 31, 2005
A bargain at half the price
Was out taking the new little madam for a walk (well, a carry) this evening when I spotted this O2 mobile advert down our street:
So whilst embodying the obligatory we’re-so-clever advertising visual and wordplay puns, does it actually make people buy more O2 stuff? Did Telefonica get value-for-money when they bought O2 today? Are they buying into a compelling vision?
Well, let’s look at what O2 is selling, and then think what the alternatives might be.
So having this unheard-of “i-mode” thingy (and you can bet 98% of the UK population haven’t heard of it) lets me, um, access the internet and search for jobs. Err, but don’t you use a PC at work on the quiet to surf Monster.com, not your phone? Can’t recruiters just call me like they usually do? And can’t I access the Internet already from my phone? Won’t it be expensive? Hmm… where’s the benefit?
And the alternative? Well, perhaps a few of those billions spent on 3G upgrades might have improved the core product that generates 90%+ of the revenue — voice calls — just a bit? One picoiota? A nanocent? Err, nope. No improved voice call quality. Can’t tell if someone is around before calling them — or even if they’re in the country. Zero presence and availability features. Still can’t access your voicemail via a multimodal client, listen to voicemails out of sequence. And so on.
I love this industry. No other is as screwed up in such wonderful and creative ways.
PS — The only mention of i-mode on the O2 home page is buried away, the main promotion is for an unrelated prepaid discount campaign, and a search box to help you hunt it down? You’ve got to be kidding me. Nice to see such joined-up marketing.
PPS — The hyphenation of i-mode is guaranteed to make word-of-mouth spread slower. Why have some name that’s hard to spell in Google? Even O2 can’t make up their mind: the advert URL is “…/i-mode”, whereas on their home page it’s “…/imode”.
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U are obviously not given a good deal for trial or early bird incentives. In Singapore, starhub launched i-mode too, maybe one week after O2's. I haven't really see any local big launch ads, I suspect they are based on some marketing timing strategy. O2's ads so far look great. Some great concept infact tho not many got the message. i-mode encourages "mobile" lifestyle, a knotch higher than the usual PC consumer behaviour. i-mode is much faster and cheaper (i think) in Singapore than the usual GPRS charges. So surfing and browising for fun looks terribly tempting, albeit on a small screen.
Posted by: at November 1, 2005 08:47 AMInteresting to read the spin from The Register on this that i-mode was really just icing on the cake for Telefonica.
"As recently as six months ago, O2 board members were privately pessimistic about their chances of a deal with Spain. However, they weren't giving up. Several courtship moves were introduced, with the highest profile one being a move towards the i-mode standard developed by DoCoMo, and adopted by Telefonica."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/31/telefonics_02/
Mobile operator in cynical move to doll itself up while squeezing customers for more services they don't need? Never.
That said, I have used the service briefly last week here in Ireland and it is fast, easy to use and waaaay ahead of WAP. Still, I won't be paying for it anytime soon.
Posted by: at November 2, 2005 04:13 PM