“The target? The consumer’s heart,” Aneta Bogdan, advertising manager with Mobifon says. The wallet or the technology are less and less important arguments, once the services provided are similar in terms of quality and price. Therefore the companies focus on building and defining the brand. The battle is to become even fiercer as of next year.
When purchasing a mobile phone, you get everything but the capacity to communicate. Becoming a mobile phone owner means becoming part of a social category, means buying a symbol you like, a symbol you can relate to.
It is not talking over the phone what tempts you, it is the integration in a community defined by certain values, which the mobile telephony companies are trying to link with the service they provide as tightly as possible.
All things considered, the image of the brand is built in the same manner as the one of a movie star. It can be cute (Michelin), serious (Mercedes), full of dynamism (Nike) or extremely conservative (Louis Vutton).
Or, to get back to the point, it can be Orange. The mobile operator bearing this name has succeeded in becoming number two in the world, after Vodafone, due to an image campaign focusing on the brand instead of the product.
In Romania, Orange is to replace the Dialog brand over the next twelve months, which is already a reason for the competition to be concerned. Those at Connex are perfectly aware that the aggressive marketing expertise of those at Orange will make an impact on the market.
Orange is a modern brand, a so-called icon brand, with an extremely powerful identity and nearly independent of the product it supports. No one can fight against it unless they use the exact same weapons: an icon-brand, backed by a campaign to define the values it promotes.
The challenge is even bigger for Connex, considering that Orange’s image and public on the other markets are so much like its own. Both of them have built their fame by stressing on optimistic messages.
“The future sounds good,” Connex’ slogan is similar to Orange’s “The future is bright. The future is Orange.” Both brands stressed on innovation and on the independent and enterprising spirit of the possible audience.
One of Connex’s solutions at the moment might be re-designing the logo and launching a new brand identity, to produce the same powerful impact as that of Orange.
Which Vodafone, one of Connex’s shareholders is already doing on other markets, as it has already changed its logo and slogan. The company, however, has not announced its plans to use its brand for the Romanian company, in which it does not hold the controlling interests, after all.