I’ve worked in marketing. I understand marketing. I like marketing. But marketing isn’t shit if you don’t have a good (if not great, awesome) product, have your distribution channels tied up and have great service.
Here’s an example, T-mobile has great freaking commercials, the bee loves the marketing campaign. It’s great, people dancing in Liverpool st station. It’s not only fun, but it’s extensible, they’ve had TV sponsorship spots, people like the brand in the UK. The full ad is great, it’s been viewed over 11M times on YouTube and appears on the first page of Google’s search results when you search for T-mobile. Here it is:
But, T-mobile doesn’t have the iPhone, T-mobile doesn’t have great service, T-mobile is an okay mobile service provider. But as Umair will tell you, okay won’t get you anywhere.
And as a result of the poor distribution, poor product etc, T-mobile lags behind its competitors, according to the FT, big time.
What would I do if I was T-mobile, well find out when Apple’s deal with O2 is closing, find out when the newest blackberry is coming out, redefine it’s trade proposition and products. Or focus on a couple of key segments, cheap pay as you go? Great data plans? Dunno. But focus on a couple and kill on the execution. Even better, lock the smartest strongest people and come up with some kind of innovation that simply (and the key work is simply) out shines the competition. Spend the time researching if there’s an underserved itch and find out how to scratch the hell out of it.
I wouldn’t spend as much as they are on marketing and advertising though, I would focus on getting the product/service better then the competition, then worry about marketing.
Marketing the hell out of a bad product or a product that isn’t at least as good as your competition will get you further behind rather then ahead.
