Brand value increases across categories

Part 3 | The Categories Technology | Telecom Providers
As the provider of communications
services for the 2012 London Summer
Olympics and Paralympic Games, BT
increased its profile worldwide. The
brand invested in developing fiber-optic
broadband infrastructure in fast growing
markets to offer customers globally
managed IT networked services. BT
generates an increasing percent of its
revenues from outside of the UK.
The need to compete effectively also
produced these other corporate hookups:
the purchase of 70 percent of Sprint
by the Japanese telecom SoftBank and
T-Mobile’s acquisition of MetroPCS.
Insight
The second screen
phenomenon
The second screen phenomenon
is a key driver of the Age of Data,
especially on the consumer
side. Fueled by growing device
ecosystems and a wide array of
video programming, consumer
data consumption has grown
geometrically. Key to this is
simultaneously viewing—people
watching TV while using a tablet
to interact with the TV show or
communicate about it with friends.
Similarly, data consumption in the
business community has grown
in leaps and bounds, as whole
industries (e.g. Healthcare) move
their operations to digital platforms
situated in the Cloud.
David Keefe
Senior Client Director
Landor Associates
David.keefe@landor.com
108 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2013
Regional variations
Brand value changes varied by geographic
region. MTN, a South
African multinational brand, rose 23 percent
in brand value, the greatest appreciation
in the BrandZ telecom category.
The brand, which operates throughout
Africa and in parts of the Middle East,
enjoyed strong revenue and earnings
growth following a 15 percent increase
in subscribers and a 58.5 percent hike in
revenue derived from data.
China Mobile, China’s most valuable
brand, across all categories, increased
18 percent in value. As the expansion of
telecommunication networks continued
to accelerate in China, China Mobile
won more 3G subscribers than its rivals
with its aggressive marketing strategy.
Responding to a dramatic increase in
mobile data transmission, the brand
launched its Wireless City Wi-Fi data
plan in more than 300 cities last year. It
is also expanding its 4G network.
Russia’s largest telecom, MTS focused
on operational improvements that helped
drive a profit increase. In a strategic
initiative to leverage its retail presence
of 4,200 locations and extend financial
services to Russia’s large population of
unbanked consumers, the brand has
recently increased its interest in MTS
Bank, the majority of which is still owned
by their common parent Sistema.
Europe’s economy depressed results for
Deutsche Telekom, Orange, and Spain’s
Movistar, while Japan’s NTT DOCOMO
felt the effects of slow growth in Japan.
Differentiation and trust
Telecoms implemented strategies to
differentiate and compete effectively
against each other and over-the-top
challengers. These operators, such as
Skype, Google, and increasingly appbased
brands like Viber and WhatsApp,
enable consumers to make free calls over
telecom networks.
Some of the telecom providers—Verizon
and BT are good examples—attempted
to transform from being conduits of data
into diversified technology businesses,
providing software solutions, data
integration and consulting services.
These kinds of offerings potentially
embed telecoms more deeply into the lives
of customers.
The rise of telematics is an important
related opportunity for telecoms.
Telematics is about the Internet of
things, the automatic gathering, storing
and transmitting of data between
smart machines. Telecoms benefit from
this development because they are the
conduits of the data, but they also face a
larger opportunity.
Telematics is a growing factor in healthcare,
automotive, insurance, education
and other businesses. Insurers, for example,
use telematics to record individual
driving habits and set customized rates
based on the data. Telecoms potentially
can play a role in the entire process, including
the data gathering, transmission
and data analysis stages of telematics.
Consumer focus
In addition to the business-to-business
telematics opportunities, telecoms also
sought new revenue-generating businesses
on the consumer side, in the growth of the
smart home concept, for example.
Using mobile phones, consumers can
regulate the heating and cooling of their
homes or adjust the settings of appliances.
Each interaction draws down data and
drives revenue for a telecom.
Second screen, or simultaneous viewing, was
one of the biggest trends driving consumer
use of data. The term describes the growing
habit of watching TV on a large screen
while interacting about the broadcast on
a small-screen device, perhaps messaging
within a social network.
Recognizing this trend, AT&T introduced
a program it calls Mobile Share, in
which customers pay for talk and text on
a phone but can share any data on all
their mobile devices for no extra charge.
Verizon led with an offering it calls the
Share Everything plan. Verizon also
advanced its 4G LTE network.
Leaders strengthen their
brand equity
The essential and pervasive nature
of communications in our lives has
shown up in the BrandZ research in
the dramatic increase in brand equity
strength among the top telecom brands.
Eight years ago, the top brands were less
characterful, desirable and distinct one
from another.
Today, the Top 10 most valuable
telecoms are much more “meaningful,”
(appealing and meeting needs),
“different” (unique in a good way and
trend setting) and “salient” (famous,
stands out) than other brands in the
category. In these key aspects of brand
equity that drive sales, the Top 10
telecoms also outperform the Top 100
Most Valuable Global Brands overall.
Source: BrandZ BigData, over 2 million consumer
interviews regarding over 10,000 brands in 30-plus countries
Key aspects of brand equity
Meaningful
Different
Salient
Top 10 Telecoms brands
All Telecoms brands
All Top 100 brands
Average brand = 100
Insights
BrandZ BigData
96
97
104
115
120
131
128
131
145
Action Points
1. Tell a story
Story telling is important for all
brands, but particularly those
in a category for a long time
defined by a short story about
pipes delivering voice and data.
Tell a more up-to-date story. The
story needs to be clear so people
understand it, compelling so
people want to act and credible,
meaning that it sounds right
coming from the brand.
2. Be different
In a commoditized business,
tangible delivery of brand
experience is requisite. It’s like
an airline. Consumers expect the
plane to fly and get them there on
time. There are tangible, rational
deliverables that are required.
Then there’s service around how
the customer gets connected, the
in-store experience. Then there’s
account management and any
loyalty incentives. Differentiate
your service to drive brand value.
3. Stress service
People’s lives are busy enough.
They want an experience,
a promise that they’ll get
everything—cable, phone and
Internet. When the experience
meets their expectations they
won’t think of the provider as
a utility. They’ll connect with
the brand.
Spotlight
How consumers use mobile
phones varies by country
Across the world, people use
their mobile phones mostly for its
primary purpose, to make calls. The
frequency with which people use
other functions varies by country.
The camera is always important.
After that, differences may reflect the
equipment available to consumers as
well their daily priorities. Recreational
use seems higher in the BRICs.
Cell/mobile phone
functions used recently
US
Text messaging
Camera
Email
Picture
messaging
Web
browsing
Games
India
Games
Camera
9%
Bluetooth
15%
Text messaging
Camera
MP3 Player
Bluetooth
Radio
Brazil
21%
19%
19%
21%
18%
15%
Speaker phone
Radio
Games
MP3 Player
29%
26%
25%
24%
21%
20%
Source: Global TGI 2012
32%
38%
35%
52%
109