Preliminary investigation of information to design the new marketing campaign for Phoney Phones has led to some interesting results.  Surveys of different segments of the population have led to varying attitudes and reasons for using mobile phones and the requirements of each.  Some of the summary details of key areas are listed in this table:

This gives us some perspective of different social and gender mixes and samples some of the things which potential clients deem to be the most important issues surrounding their mobile phones.  As can be seen from this excerpt the issues vary widely and it is proposed to identify target groups and aim specific areas of the campaign at those target groups.  It would be inadvisable to have a single campaign aimed at all markets, as it would be unlikely to reach any of them.  One criteria which we have not yet addressed and needs to be investigated is the willingness of one or more of the service providers to join Phoney Phones in the advertising campaign.  The network service providers that we will initially contact for this will be:
Vodaphone
O2
Orange
Virgin

This could be mutually beneficial, the provider would get reduced cost advertising as would our existing client and it would allow targeted marketing, perhaps at the family market where the key elements are call rates and using the same network.  Perhaps if our client and one of the service providers could create a 'Family package' where a number of phones could be purchased and the provider then offers reduced rates (as this is likely to be a relatively untapped market, using the service for the most part at the non-peak times.  Further study of this and an outline campaign, should any of the network service providers show an interest will be undertaken by Rochelle.

One major discovery from the initial study was that a large majority of the 7-14 year olds were given mobile phones as birthday and Christmas presents, and that whilst the adults often selected the network, the choice of mobile was often left to the children.  The most important elements in their thinking appeared to be the current fashion (the phrase repeated often to our researchers was 'that is the most cool phone there is'), the number and quality of the games, and in the older children the accessories available.  This would give an ideal marketing opportunity.  If a 'child centred' campaign was launched in late September, October, November and early December offering a bundle with games, accessories and the implication that the phone or phones selected for the campaign were the latest fashion items, then I am sure that this would have a major impact upon sales.  The media perhaps best suited to this would be television, cable or satellite, but the airtime selected could be during the less expensive children's and teenager's viewing hours. 

As fashion appears to be a primary element for almost all of the younger profiles in choosing a phone, it is likely to be the most prominent feature of all our proposed campaigns.  There are two ways of dealing with this item, either by following existing trends or making new ones.  To follow the existing trends then it would be wise to select the most popular current product range/s and package these in a way which makes them more attractive to other customers.  This approach has been used by Phoney Phones before but has had little success; I would think that this is due to market saturation.  If a currently popular model of phone is selected then a large segment of the market has already been taken.  If the other approach of setting new trends and fashions is used then those people who avidly follow fashion will be persuaded to buy the products and a self perpetuating market is created.  

There are key elements to developing this market; a new model must be identified, preferably before it has been launched by the manufacturer.  It may be worth discussing this with the manufacturers with whom Phoney Phones have a good working relationship, and again this has the potential to be mutually beneficial.  The new product must have a feature or features that are not readily available on current phones - the use of colour phones was an ideal example of this when it was first launched.  Perhaps we could consider these:

The advertising campaign needs to raise awareness and be endorsed by one or more major personalities.   Jenny and Xavier will investigate this prior to our next team meeting.