Like a Virgin
am i the only one who has noticed that the big almighty Virgin mobile has queitened down… where are you Mr. Branson… my bad, SIR Branson?
its a known fact that when Virgin enters a new territtory in a new place they do it with a huge BANG, and bang it did go for them when they launched the Virgin mobile company in South Africa. not only were we bombarded with countless tv, radio, billboard advertisments, but eh press did their fair share in intoducing us to the dynamic man himself, through the interviews they conducted. so i pose the question again, how come they are so quiet these days.
so what exactly did Virgin offer us that the Cell- C, Vodacom and MTNs of South Africa didn’t have???? cheaper rates? Cheaper handsets and i’m not too sure what else? however i feel where Virgin got it wrong was thier approach to marketing in the South African region. i mean the other cell phone companies have survived this long because they have always been able to be relevant and specific to thier target market. even Cell-C (a brand i will never consume becuase of that dam Cell-C woman’s “come hither” voice) has managed to stay on top of their game and keep going in South Africa.
the problem with Cellphone providers is that although they always happen to claim that they have cheaper tarrifs, they’ve never realy managed to convince the majority of the population who are on pre- paid. sure we all need cellphones these days, but i can’t honestly say that my vodacom provider is really cheaper, to be honest the only reason why i use vodacom is beacause of my beloved number that i have had for a while now. so they all promise this and that, but when you think about it, its all a huge scam…. take the whole vodacom talking points for example… you get one point for every R10 airtime that you buy, and you get rewarded when you have a certain amount of points. now the thing that frustrates me is that it is only after you’ve spent R1 500 on airtime, do you start getting stupid things like 150 sms, when you could be buying a new phone with built in camera and mp3. But the sad thing is, i still need a cellphone to function like some kind of human being.
so getting back to Virgin and thier promises and grand display of wealth and prosperity. if Virgin mobile, and virgin banking, really wanted to take the market by storm and develop (and most importantly, maintain) a relationship with South Africa, he should have tapped into the majority of South Africans… the black South Africans to be more specific. sure thier Virgin money “blingola” campaign showed all the material wealth that one could get with a Virgin Credit card, but their Virgin mobile campaign just doesn’t seem to cut it. despite cute little black girls with angel wings, that’s about it.
the question i ask is why didn’t Virgin look at the trends in South Africa, actually why don’t more brands get an understanding of the average South African, before they bombard them with communications and thier product? if all brands did this, maybe they would have full support of the South african population. but then again the world of branding and communications never was easy.
so Sir Branson, if you’re still interested, there is a huge wealth potential in South Africa, hopefully this isn’t the end of the road yet. just talk to us in a language we all understand, and we’ll give you all the support you need:)
its a known fact that the majority of South African consumers feel that they are not represented clearly in adverts, either they are depicted as young BEE hot shots, or as domestic labourers of workers.
