Should Skinny disclose who their parent is?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Should Skinny disclose who their parent is?

nate

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#104424 18-Jun-2012 17:15

Should Skinny openly state on all their marketing material that they are a subsidiary of Telecom?

(had a rather heated debate on Saturday night with family friends, keen to hear what you lot think)

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#642646 18-Jun-2012 17:19

I don't think it matters.

Getting slightly OT but I only give the brand another 12 months before it's absorbed back into Telecom anyway. Smart idea from a marketing move, dumb from a business idea. The niche focus was far too small to help Telecom as it deals with the competition from 2d.

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#642647 18-Jun-2012 17:21

Did it happen with Boost?

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#642648 18-Jun-2012 17:22

If it was a separate company with nothing more than a shared parent relationship I wouldn't be too worried. But it's not, Skinny is a marketing brand entirely owned by Telecom and run as a stalking horse. It is not a separate company no matter how many times they say it is.

If Skinny is separate let's see them sign up to the Telco Dispute Resolution Service, and to the various other telco agencies that need telco support/engagement. And how about an entry in the Companies Office as a separate company.

It's a marketing brand and that's it.

This is one of the reasons TUANZ objects to the Commerce Commission's decision not to do anything about Skinny handset locking - it's Telecom doing it, not some small company with hardly any customers. Yes, Telecom's decided it's only doing it with Skinny for now, but it's still Telecom running the show.

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#642655 18-Jun-2012 17:29

sbiddle: I don't think it matters.

Getting slightly OT but I only give the brand another 12 months before it's absorbed back into Telecom anyway. Smart idea from a marketing move, dumb from a business idea. The niche focus was far too small to help Telecom as it deals with the competition from 2d.

To be honest, the current round of advertising in embarassing to watch, and not a patch on 2Degrees with Rhys Darby. Running a seperate brand for such a large is a good idea, but it feels like a hobby without enough marketing money to drive it and diffirentiate.

Meanwhile 2D has to market or die.... pretty compelling strategy!

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#642656 18-Jun-2012 17:29

manhinli: Did it happen with Boost?

Yep. And GOLD Mobile (which was the "Telecom sub-brand for grandmas who never use their phone", sold exclusively at The Warehouse) before that.

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#642657 18-Jun-2012 17:29

nate: Should Skinny openly state on all their marketing material that they are a subsidiary of Telecom?

(had a rather heated debate on Saturday night with family friends, keen to hear what you lot think)

does anyone really care that much?

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manhinli

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#642659 18-Jun-2012 17:31

theEd:
manhinli: Did it happen with Boost?

Yep. And GOLD Mobile (which was the "Telecom sub-brand for grandmas who never use their phone", sold exclusively at The Warehouse) before that.

Ah yes! The no expiry, call-rate-depends-on-your-recharge prepay service... I think I may still have the GOLD Mobile sleeve for the box of a Nokia 5110!

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#642663 18-Jun-2012 17:33

theEd:
manhinli: Did it happen with Boost?

Yep. And GOLD Mobile (which was the "Telecom sub-brand for grandmas who never use their phone", sold exclusively at The Warehouse) before that.

Gold Mobile wasn't initially a Telecom brand. It never was. At some point Telecom bought the accounts and loaded them all as CDMA Prepaid.

I am the guy who actually wrote the program to load the accounts into the Telecom prepay system and spent the night monitoring the process.

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#642665 18-Jun-2012 17:33

sbiddle: I don't think it matters.

Getting slightly OT but I only give the brand another 12 months before it's absorbed back into Telecom anyway. Smart idea from a marketing move, dumb from a business idea. The niche focus was far too small to help Telecom as it deals with the competition from 2d.

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#642707 18-Jun-2012 18:19

I think they have done remarkably well, and captured their youth audience pretty well especially in social networking.
It takes a lot to make youths want to spend more than their $10 texting plan per month and i reckon skinny has done an impressive job of pushing this up to at least $16 a month.

Who knows what their future will be like, but the brand has actually done better than i expected.

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#642718 18-Jun-2012 18:37

eXDee: I think they have done remarkably well, and captured their youth audience pretty well especially in social networking.
It takes a lot to make youths want to spend more than their $10 texting plan per month and i reckon skinny has done an impressive job of pushing this up to at least $16 a month.

Which is why I question the viability of this brand. Kids are expensive to support and generate precious little revenue, so I would have thought that the capital investment would have been better spent on Telecom's core network infrastructure, or initiatives to attract higher ARPU customers.

Getting back to the original question, I don't see why they should disclose who their parent is. I would guess that most people have no idea who is behind brand names that they regularly consume like "Eta", "More FM", "Rebel Sport", etc. but it's easy enough to find out if you're not too lazy.

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nate

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#642728 18-Jun-2012 18:53

NonprayingMantis: does anyone really care that much?

If you have a chip on your shoulder from a previous poor experience from Telecom, it does.

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#642735 18-Jun-2012 19:01

On the original question, I am in the firm NO camp. Companies are free to identify themselves, or create subsidiaries (run as separate businesses) anyway they wish.

Happens all the time, what about the Briscoe Group (Briscoes, Rebel Sports, Living & Giving), or Gresham owning the Noel Leeming Group which includes Bond & Bond, two competing companies with the same owner, just to name a couple of examples.

I think if you dug into the companies register you would be surprised just who own what.

Skinny is Skinny, who is behind it is no secret, but to be compelled to be marketed as a subsidiary? Don't think so.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

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#642750 18-Jun-2012 19:23

antoniosk:
sbiddle: I don't think it matters.

Getting slightly OT but I only give the brand another 12 months before it's absorbed back into Telecom anyway. Smart idea from a marketing move, dumb from a business idea. The niche focus was far too small to help Telecom as it deals with the competition from 2d.

To be honest, the current round of advertising in embarassing to watch, and not a patch on 2Degrees with Rhys Darby. Running a seperate brand for such a large is a good idea, but it feels like a hobby without enough marketing money to drive it and diffirentiate.

Meanwhile 2D has to market or die.... pretty compelling strategy!

Skinny reminds me of a company who launches in the market selling cocktail umbrellas or infact any large market where somebody thinks capturing 1% is a goal.

They targetted a niche 15-25 market because they were scared of losing customers to 2degrees. By focussing on such a narrow market because they ignored the 26-80 year old market who were unhappy paying high prices and wanted a change. The fragmentation was a bad idea, all because both Telecom were too scared they would devalue their brand by actually charging market rates for their products.

If I was a corporate Telecom or Gen-i customer I'd be wanting answers as to why a 15yr old who has absolutely no brand loyalty and spends literally a few dollars per week gets calling rates of 10c per minute, a rate that is far less than the vast majority of big spending customers are paying.

Telecom did everything right with Skinny when it came to branding and the execution. It's just a shame it's such a dumb idea.

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#642769 18-Jun-2012 19:59

Skinny is a horrible idea, no one uses all their sms, text or data evenly during a month. it will cost just as much in the long run. Skinny only looks better on paper.

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