Skinny's new aggressive ad campaign

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Skinny's new aggressive ad campaign

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#1092574 20-Jul-2014 17:51

thecatsgoolies: http://www.computerworld.co.nz/article/492263/skatepark_promotion_backfires_skinny_mobile/
Who do they sponsor? ;)

I think we can confidently assume, without seeing any numbers to prove it, that sponsoring an amateur skateboarding competition is considerably cheaper than sponsoring a professional rugby league team.

ajw

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#1092583 20-Jul-2014 17:55

Slightly OT but there should be some good promo deals next month when telecom renames to spark.

sbiddle

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#1092592 20-Jul-2014 18:30

ajw: @sbiddle They're also creating growing discontent with their business customers who can't get unlimited calling for $40 per month per connection.

Please give details as a few friends were looking at this plan.

www.skinny.co.nz has them

Dratsab

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#1092594 20-Jul-2014 18:33

sbiddle: Sub brands have always been a dumb idea from a marketing perspective, companies only create them out of desperation which in itself is an admission their a) business model or b) brand isn't a good one.

Or to wipe out competition, which is exactly what Air New Zealand did with Freedom Air to counter Kiwi Airlines. Kiwirail's Cook Strait Vomit Comets (disasters in their own right, as were their catalyst) were in similar vein - loss leading to force an end to competition.

Yabanize

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#1092597 20-Jul-2014 18:42

How about jetstar and qantas new world and paknsave, , and they seem pretty successful.

I think its great not having stores etc to make the service cheaper for customers, I don't need stores, Heck I don't even need phone support. I love the stripped down idea

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#1092598 20-Jul-2014 18:43

NonprayingMantis:
dunno, loads and loads of Telcos seem to have them, some of the most successful ones in fact. So it seems to be working for them.

I guess your marketing expertise is a lot better than the guys who work at:

KPN
TDC
O2

for example.

Define successful.

Everybody in this world has a view on marketing. If your brand is strong enough you shouldn't be needing to create a sub brand solely for the purpose of competing with the competition. You don't see Coke making a generic brand cola to undercut Pepsi - their brand is strong enough to stand on it's own two feet and retain customers.

Take Vodafone who's focus (globally) is solely on quality of customers, not quantity of customers. Here in NZ's they haven't really bothered to partake in the aggressive fighting at the bottom of the market between Skinny and 2degrees over customers, many of whom are hardly big spenders.

Skinny was a train wreck from the day it was launched with an exceptionally poor business model that was doomed for failure from the start. It took a year for that to be reigned in and arguably it's now serving the purpose it should have done from the start - but the brand is wrong, and when you have to rely on your parent brand it's proof your sub brand strategy has failed. From day 2 Skinny has always had to push the fact they were part of Telecom. On day 1 nobody would sign up with them because they didn't know who they were.

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#1092599 20-Jul-2014 18:47

Yabanize: How about jetstar and qantas new world and paknsave, , and they seem pretty successful. I think its great not having stores etc to make the service cheaper for customers, I don't need stores, Heck I don't even need phone support. I love the stripped down idea

Jetstar was created to break the union stranglehold of Qantas and reduce costs. That's completely different to the Skinny/Telecom concept.

New World and Pak 'n Save are all individually owned stores that simply belong to the same co-operative. A Pak 'n Save store doesn't rely on a New World store to exist in the marketplace unlike Skinny that requires Telecom.

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Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

ajw

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#1092601 20-Jul-2014 18:50

sbiddle:
ajw: @sbiddle They're also creating growing discontent with their business customers who can't get unlimited calling for $40 per month per connection.

Please give details as a few friends were looking at this plan.

www.skinny.co.nz has them

I was referring to your statement that @sbiddle:They're also creating growing discontent with their business customers who can't get unlimited calling for $40 per month per connection.

charsleysa

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#1092602 20-Jul-2014 18:52

@sbiddle is skinny going to be another boost mobile?

Regards
Stefan Andres Charsley

AidanS

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#1092603 20-Jul-2014 18:55

I think from a marketing point, Skinny is doing a great job at recapturing the more "budget" typically teenage/young person mobile market. Sometimes it's difficult to make your "main" brand (Telecom in this case) work well as people in each market segment don't often want to have their choice of provider associated with a different market segment. It's from this concept that you get a certain level of "stigma" attached to companies. It's the reason many teenagers don't switch to Telecom even though the price and service is arguably the same as Vodafone. However many of this same target market will consider Skinny as it's "new" and "fresh". In some scenarios you need subbrands/companies in order to capture certain market segments especially if your "main" brand has been around for a long time.

-A.

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#1092604 20-Jul-2014 18:55

ajw:
sbiddle:
ajw: @sbiddle They're also creating growing discontent with their business customers who can't get unlimited calling for $40 per month per connection.

Please give details as a few friends were looking at this plan.

www.skinny.co.nz has them

I was referring to your statement that @sbiddle:They're also creating growing discontent with their business customers who can't get unlimited calling for $40 per month per connection.

I'm not sure what else there is to say other than what I posted above - there is dissatisfaction at Telecom from some business customers who are paying a lot more than $40 for flat rate connections and wanting to know why they can't pay that price with Telecom.

sbiddle

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#1092605 20-Jul-2014 19:00

AidanS: I think from a marketing point, Skinny is doing a great job at recapturing the more "budget" typically teenage/young person mobile market. Sometimes it's difficult to make your "main" brand (Telecom in this case) work well as people in each market segment don't often want to have their choice of provider associated with a different market segment. It's from this concept that you get a certain level of "stigma" attached to companies. It's the reason many teenagers don't switch to Telecom even though the price and service is arguably the same as Vodafone. However many of this same target market will consider Skinny as it's "new" and "fresh". In some scenarios you need subbrands/companies in order to capture certain market segments especially if your "main" brand has been around for a long time.

-A.

I only partially agree with that.

Many customers only want the cheapest product and don't care who the brand is.

Telecom's problem (and reason it had to create Skinny) was that it was going to cannibalise it's own brand and business customers when it slashed it's pricing to compete with 2d at the bottom of the market. In the mobile game you really struggle to justify charging a business customer 10x the price for the identical product. You can't differentiate like you can with internet by offering a better quality offering.

ajw

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#1092606 20-Jul-2014 19:00

sbiddle:
ajw:
sbiddle:
ajw: @sbiddle They're also creating growing discontent with their business customers who can't get unlimited calling for $40 per month per connection.

Please give details as a few friends were looking at this plan.

www.skinny.co.nz has them

I was referring to your statement that @sbiddle:They're also creating growing discontent with their business customers who can't get unlimited calling for $40 per month per connection.

I'm not sure what else there is to say other than what I posted above - there is dissatisfaction at Telecom from some business customers who are paying a lot more than $40 for flat rate connections and wanting to know why they can't pay that price with Telecom.

Them's the breaks, nothing preventing some of these smaller companies switching. Rather than being locked into a 24 Month contract for a subsidised handset I would prefer to be on prepay anyday. To each his own.

nigelj

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#1092608 20-Jul-2014 19:10

charsleysa: @sbiddle is skinny going to be another boost mobile?

Boost Mobile was AFAIK a 'virtual brand' at one point (actually was there two Boost Mobiles in NZ?)

During the 027/CDMA days I recall Boost Mobile was a Virtual Brand for Telecom where a couple of low-priced phones were dual branded and the $10 top-ups were printed as 'Boost Mobile' but worked on any Telecom prepaid connection.

During the 025/TDMA days (and this is where I'm fuzzy) was there another Boost Mobile (or was it named something else?) which was a The Warehouse operation??? That was kinda autonomous from Telecom? (Honestly I can't remember that far back)

Either way, Skinny is pretty autonomous from Telecom, Skinny is to Telecom Retail in Mobile, as what Bigpipe is to Telecom Retail is in Broadband... (i.e. both owned by Telecom and/or/via Telecom Digital Ventures, but like Bigpipe has to sign up to Chorus like any other RSP, I imagine Skinny has to wholesale agree to use Telecom Mobile equipment like any other wholesale user (like Digital Island etc) else face the wrath of the Com Com)

NonprayingMantis

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#1092610 20-Jul-2014 19:15

sbiddle:
NonprayingMantis:
dunno, loads and loads of Telcos seem to have them, some of the most successful ones in fact. So it seems to be working for them.

I guess your marketing expertise is a lot better than the guys who work at:

KPN
TDC
O2

for example.

Define successful.

Everybody in this world has a view on marketing. If your brand is strong enough you shouldn't be needing to create a sub brand solely for the purpose of competing with the competition. You don't see Coke making a generic brand cola to undercut Pepsi - their brand is strong enough to stand on it's own two feet and retain customers.

coke has loads and loads of other brands.
They don't call Fanta "coke orange" they call it Fanta.

http://www.coca-colacompany.com/brands/all/

Some of them are very obviously coke, but many others barely rate a mention as having coke as their parent brand.

Aquapure Aquarius Bacardi Mixers * Bacardi Premium Mixers * Barq's Barrilitos Beverly Bright And Early Caffeine-free Barq's Caffeine-free Coca-Cola Caffeine-free Diet Coke Cascal cherry Coke Chippewa Citra Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Black Cherry Vanilla Coca-Cola Cherry Zero Coca-Cola Zero Coca-Cola Zero Caffeine-Free Cumberland Gap DANNON * DASANI Delaware Punch diet Barq's Diet cherry Coke Diet Coke Diet Coke Black Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke with Lime Diet Coke with Splenda Diet Fuze Tea diet Inca Kola Diet Master Pour Diet Northern Neck Diet Sprite Diet Sprite Zero Dr Pepper* Evian * Fanta Fanta Sugar Free Fanta Zero Five Alive Flavor Rage Fresca Fruitopia Full Throttle FUZE FUZE TEA Georgia glacéau fruitwater glacéau smartwater glacéau vitaminenergy glacéau vitaminwater glacéau vitaminwater zero Gold Peak H2OK Hi-C Honest Ade Honest Fizz Honest Kids Honest Tea Honest Tea Zero Illy * Inca Kola Java Monster* Jericho Kinley Krest Lift Master Chill Master Pour Mello Yello Mello Yello Zero Mezzo Mix Minute Maid Minute Maid Enhanced Minute Maid Fruit Falls Minute Maid Juices To Go Minute Maid Light Minute Maid Orchards Monster * Northern Neck NOS Odwalla Peace Tea * Pepe Rico Pibb Xtra Pibb Zero POWERADE POWERADE PLAY POWERADE ZERO Red Flash Schweppes Simply Southern Sun Spring! Sprite Sprite Zero Sugar Free Full Throttle Sugar Free NOS Sugar Free Sprite Sunfill Surge TaB Vanilla Coke Vanilla Coke Zero VAULT Vault Zero Vegibeta Vegitabeta Worx Energy * Zico *

Take Vodafone who's focus (globally) is solely on quality of customers, not quantity of customers. Here in NZ's they haven't really bothered to partake in the aggressive fighting at the bottom of the market between Skinny and 2degrees over customers, many of whom are hardly big spenders.

really? they seem to have more prepaid options than anybody else. They also have basically the same $19 pack the Vf and 2D have as well as all the other stuff like freebies etc

Skinny was a train wreck from the day it was launched with an exceptionally poor business model that was doomed for failure from the start. It took a year for that to be reigned in and arguably it's now serving the purpose it should have done from the start - but the brand is wrong, and when you have to rely on your parent brand it's proof your sub brand strategy has failed. From day 2 Skinny has always had to push the fact they were part of Telecom. On day 1 nobody would sign up with them because they didn't know who they were.

yep. but was that because it was a sub-brand, or because it was executed poorly?

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