Phones4U to redirect its marketing
Phones4U are looking to gain a more distinct target market positioning by ditching characters Jack, Scary Mary and Lazy Bob after five years.
The phone retailer is looking to open a brand new marketing campaign to compete with rival Carphone Warehouse.
The campaign will run for three months over TV, Radio, Press and Online introducing the strapline, ‘Great Deals 4 Popular People’ playing on peoples obsession with popularity.
Created by Adam & Eve, the marketing campaign features characters such as the ‘Scout Master’ who will be labelled with ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ stickers indicating whether they are likely to have numbers of more than 50 friends saved on their mobile phone.
The mobile phone giant hopes to better engage with its 16-24 year old target audience by sending out ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ stickers.
At present, Phones4U have less stores at 450, compared to Carphone Warehouses’ 800 stores across the UK, however the company have been gaining market share since Christmas.
The new value message has taken its share of new contracts to around 23 per cent, with a third of customers as their target youth audience.
Russell Braterman joined Phones4U as the Marketing Director late last year after the departure of Jim Slater. He believes that the ‘fierce’ competition with Carphone Warehouse has forced them to ‘raise its game.’
Following the high media attention the last marketing campaign received Braterman is fully aware that the new campaign will not receive as much attention but says the old one has “reached the end of its lifespan and was not saying anything new for the brand.”
The new ad campaign still upholds the ‘in-your-face’ attitude seen in previous Phones4U marketing ads, and even takes a swipe at Carphone Warehouse in that it “doesn’t have to worry about upsetting Middle England or being pan-European and generic in our messages.”
Since the start of the campaign, the press and public have seen Phones4U change their logo in press ads to give it a more contemporary feel, giving the brand, according to Braterman, more ‘energy and standout.’
Popularity: 8% [?]
I’m one of many hundreds of thousands of current and former Scout Leaders and I’m not a sad friendless loser. Neither is Bear Grylls our new Chief Scout.
In my opinion this ad seeks to make Scouting seem un-cool, which is counter to the huge voluntary efforts that Scouting has put in over the last few years to modernize and refresh it’s image. There is also a significant risk that it will increase the bullying that Scouts in the 16-24 Phones4U target age group suffer from their peers because of their association with Scouting.
There is already quite a rumble about this advert in the very broad Scouting community.