There’s been a bit of mud-slinging on the mobile phone scene recently. EE’s recent withdrawal of Orange Wednesdays saw O2 run a marketing campaign that subtly backhanded its competitor. The campaign gave the public chance to trade an EE sim card for two cinema tickets, with O2 offering the perk that EE gave in its long-running SMS promotional deal.
I was amused by the article on O2’s website in which it announced the offer. O2 made it sound like EE customers were only ever with the network for Orange Wednesdays, and that so many of us had a second sim card by EE that we only ever used once a week to get the ‘2-4-1’ film code. I’m not sure whether that’s true, but I thought it was clever of O2 to make it appear like EE had lost its only plus point. It’s also an effective way of getting customers to move away from EE. I think that EE’s withdrawal of Orange Wednesday’s is part of the move to phase out of the Orange brand.
O2’s sim-card exchange program reminded me of Apple’s trade-in initiative that it recently announced. Customers will soon be able to trade non-Apple smartphones for a new iPhone reduced in price. This could be a worthwhile way of converting Android and Blackberry users to the iPhone. Will we see an increase in Apple’s market share? Maybe not, as customers could get a better deal elsewhere from other smart-phone trade-in programs that can offer more than Apple.
As a technology PR agency, we like to see how tech brands respond to the competition they’re up against. We’ve seen examples of a mobile phone manufacturer and a mobile network operator using trade-in tactics to win over customers. We’ll see if other brands follow suit.
Alex Brown has just started his career at Skout PR and will be a regular contributor to the Skout blog.
