Skinny's new aggressive ad campaign

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

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MikeB4

18435 posts

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#1092803 21-Jul-2014 08:38

KiwiNZ: I have had two dealings with, (and for want of a different adjective) Skinny sales staff and they were very unprofessional, rude and acted like complete numpty's. Would go near them for any reason.

Just to clarify this statement, the staff I had dealings with were not from this site, these were "instore" promotions staff, I accept that they were probably just temp staff but the hirer is responsible for their demeanour, sales approach and how to correctly overcome sales objections.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1092861 21-Jul-2014 10:45

pchs:
freitasm: But most of those are brand names, not company names.

Skinny/Bigpipe etc are all brand names of Telecom aren't they? They don't appear to exist as their own Company's on the company's website, and their seem to either report into the executive Team at Telecom, so all these company's ultimately report to the Telecom CEO.

Jetstar for example seems to be an entirely separate company just owned 100% by Qantas - it has its own CEO reporting to a board whereas Skinny/Bigpipe's CEO reports to Telecom's CEO (which would assume that they will need to work in a way that benefits the overall Telecom business) and have their own published financials. In almost all cases they will consume from their parent where possible, I.E Bigpipe uses Telecom International for internet bandwidth (Don't think it peers at the Citylink exchanges etc) and I suspect that TDV's WSA with Chorus would somehow be under the Telecom one (being part of Telecom they will be bound by separation agreements) They would need to be a separate company to have their own WSA

I would assume that Bigpipe and Skinny are brands just the same as Gen-I, Telecom International, Telecom Retail etc, all part of the overall Telecom Group.

As someone mentioned the goal (IMHO) would almost certainty pivot around not cannibalising their existing customerbase, a huge one here for Telecom is POTS, so it would not surprise me to see a Bigpipe or Skinny POTS discount service at some stage too..

doubtful.
Bigpipe's tagline is "nothing but broadband" and Skinny's new ad hinges around "we only do mobile"
bundling POTS with either of those things would be utterly pointless.
The whole point of Skinny and Bigpipe is to sell different product offerings to the main brand, not converge back to identical product sets.

The whole we can save by not spending on marketing is just that, marketing fluff...

well partly. sponsoring a rugby league team is likely to be pretty expensive.
Making animated youtube videos is probably a lot cheaper than making filmed TV ads using movie stars.

Disclaimer! this is just what I can see from public info, so happy to be proven wrong (and I'm sure Bigpipe/Skinny will soon do this if I am!)

nigelj

856 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1093319 21-Jul-2014 21:49

deadlyllama:
nigelj:
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)

The 025/DAMPS brand was Pulse. The National Bank offered me a cheap Pulse phone when I was a student. I think The Warehouse sold prepay 025 phones too.

joff_nz: The warehouse ones were gold mobile iirc

freitasm: Gold Mobile was a third party, almost like a MVNO. It was later bought by Telecom - I know I designed the data migration.

Gold mobile! That's it! Thanks for the correction guys (+1's for all! - I didn't know about Pulse btw), in that case I'm guessing there was only one Boost Mobile operation and it was more a Virtual Brand as I recall rather than a MVNO like Gold/Skinny/etc

Anyway, to touch on Charsleysa's point, I think the introduction of 'Boost mobile' in NZ was an attempt to bring an American brand name into NZ (it still works over there) in hopes of doing what Skinny does somewhat successfully today.

mattwnz

20177 posts

Uber Geek

#1093337 21-Jul-2014 21:57

sbiddle:
freitasm:

Their marketing probably bet a lot of people don't know about Skinny and Telecom's relationship.

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

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.

I can certainly see why. My personal observation of why I think companies create sub brands, is because if the sub brand existed by itself as a separate company, it wouldn't be a sustainable business model. So the sub brand is propped up financially by the main company where those customers are paying a higher price, which gives the sub brand more strength financially to compete against the competitors in the lower priced market they are targeting. I have seen this in other industries, so you can get the identical service for a lot less via the sub brand, than from the main parent. So in a way if you are a customer of the parent company you are subsidizing the service for a sub brand customer, and you are better to switch yourself to that sub brand. But many people who are a customer of the parent wouldn't know that the sub brand exists, or if they do, of it's relationship with the parent.
Companies that do this have to be careful that the subbrand doesn't cannibalize the parent company though.

jpfree

45 posts

Geek

#1093951 22-Jul-2014 21:55

nigelj: Gold mobile! That's it! Thanks for the correction guys (+1's for all! - I didn't know about Pulse btw), in that case I'm guessing there was only one Boost Mobile operation and it was more a Virtual Brand as I recall rather than a MVNO like Gold/Skinny/etc

I remember before that The Warehouse had Freedom Mobile, I don't know if they were the same as or became Gold.

Found someone who has documented the Freedom prepay card designs: http://www.newzeal.com/steve/remote/freedom.htm

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1093964 22-Jul-2014 23:16

mattwnz:
sbiddle:
freitasm:

Their marketing probably bet a lot of people don't know about Skinny and Telecom's relationship.

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

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.

I can certainly see why. My personal observation of why I think companies create sub brands, is because if the sub brand existed by itself as a separate company, it wouldn't be a sustainable business model. So the sub brand is propped up financially by the main company where those customers are paying a higher price, which gives the sub brand more strength financially to compete against the competitors in the lower priced market they are targeting. I have seen this in other industries, so you can get the identical service for a lot less via the sub brand, than from the main parent. So in a way if you are a customer of the parent company you are subsidizing the service for a sub brand customer, and you are better to switch yourself to that sub brand. But many people who are a customer of the parent wouldn't know that the sub brand exists, or if they do, of it's relationship with the parent.
Companies that do this have to be careful that the subbrand doesn't cannibalize the parent company though.

I think the point is that you are not getting an identical service via the sub-brand.

take, for example, Bigpipe. You're getting broadband which is basically the same, however you don't get free modem, you don't get 24/7 call centre, you don't get free 'stuff' (xtra email, McAfee antivirus, all questionable value, but some people like them)

likewise skinny gets you voice/txt/data, but you don't get stuff like 24/7 call centre, you don't get free spotify, you don't get WiFi access, you don't get 'in-store' support

So it's more like the sub-brand allows you to target a different segment of customers. in the case of skinny/bigpipe, they are targeting people who don't want the 'extras' and just want the main product. Anybody who moves from Telecom to the sub-brands clearly didn't value the 'extras' Telecom was offering, and so probably would have left anyway and gone elsewhere. The sub-brand allows Telecom to still retain them as a customer.

The customers of the parent company aren't necessarily subsidising the sub-brands, since the sub-brands would be expected to have lower costs to go along with the lower pricing. In fact it is entirely possible customers on the sub-brands are more profitable then customers on the parent.

Yabanize

2350 posts

Uber Geek

#1093969 22-Jul-2014 23:35

NonprayingMantis:
mattwnz:
sbiddle:
freitasm:

Their marketing probably bet a lot of people don't know about Skinny and Telecom's relationship.

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

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.

I can certainly see why. My personal observation of why I think companies create sub brands, is because if the sub brand existed by itself as a separate company, it wouldn't be a sustainable business model. So the sub brand is propped up financially by the main company where those customers are paying a higher price, which gives the sub brand more strength financially to compete against the competitors in the lower priced market they are targeting. I have seen this in other industries, so you can get the identical service for a lot less via the sub brand, than from the main parent. So in a way if you are a customer of the parent company you are subsidizing the service for a sub brand customer, and you are better to switch yourself to that sub brand. But many people who are a customer of the parent wouldn't know that the sub brand exists, or if they do, of it's relationship with the parent.
Companies that do this have to be careful that the subbrand doesn't cannibalize the parent company though.

I think the point is that you are not getting an identical service via the sub-brand.

take, for example, Bigpipe. You're getting broadband which is basically the same, however you don't get free modem, you don't get 24/7 call centre, you don't get free 'stuff' (xtra email, McAfee antivirus, all questionable value, but some people like them)

likewise skinny gets you voice/txt/data, but you don't get stuff like 24/7 call centre, you don't get free spotify, you don't get WiFi access, you don't get 'in-store' support

So it's more like the sub-brand allows you to target a different segment of customers. in the case of skinny/bigpipe, they are targeting people who don't want the 'extras' and just want the main product. Anybody who moves from Telecom to the sub-brands clearly didn't value the 'extras' Telecom was offering, and so probably would have left anyway and gone elsewhere. The sub-brand allows Telecom to still retain them as a customer.

The customers of the parent company aren't necessarily subsidising the sub-brands, since the sub-brands would be expected to have lower costs to go along with the lower pricing. In fact it is entirely possible customers on the sub-brands are more profitable then customers on the parent.

Completely agree, I prefer saving money over getting extras i dont need,

Im on skinny, I dont use spotify (although it could be nice), I barely ever call the call center, just message them on facebook, Cant be bothered using the wifi, and have no reason to go in store

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