PTC sees plus in new idea brand
That is exactly what G7, the local advertising company behind the brand, had in mind when it began working on Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa's new pre-paid concept just two days before Christmas last year.
"(PTC) said we want to do it in two months," says Jacek Hensler-Bryniarski, managing partner at G7. "And I was like, 'Let's do it.'"
Such was the apparent decision-making style behind Heyah - the new brand launched by PTC to address what its consumer studies had confirmed to be a directly unmet demand in the country, the price-sensitive youth segment. This launch of inexpensive services - untied to mobile phone purchases - has pledged to transform the mobile industry by, hopefully, lowering prices for consumers and opening a door to another lucrative market segment. And, following the rule of what is a highly competitive market, PTC competitors are expected to follow suit with their own similar offerings.
"Customer satisfaction of [mobile telecom] consumers in Poland is lower than in other countries mainly because of prices," Hensler-Bryniarski says of the impetus behind Heyah. He explains that if one simplifies the mobile market for advertising purposes, then there are just two key segments, those who desire state-of-the-art products and services and those who only need phones for calls and SMSs.
The latter group does not demand "all the bells and whistles," Hensler-Bryniarski says.
Thus was born Heyah for the simpler customer and the concept of the red hand, which was advertised without naming the new brand in a "teaser campaign," before announcing the brand in full two weeks ago amid much market speculation. Hensler-Bryniarski, who seems well schooled in western advertising parlance, recalls just how, out of a handful of branding ideas, PTC and G7 concluded with the much-publicized hand.
"The first thing we did was to write up the brand concept," he says. "We didn't start to think about products and price. We wrote up concepts to see that they would communicate [in terms of] tonality and personality. And we quickly wrote what I call the heart of the brand."
In the final stages of the decision-making process he said the group pared the number of ideas to two - the now recognizable hand under the name of Heyah and "a little funny head" under the name of Buzz.
Why choose the hand over the head?
"We picked the hand because we wanted to come up with a brand that didn't need any explanation," he says. PTC wanted a simple, telling symbol that, when posted up in shops, would signify exactly what Heyah was.
"Also the hand has a lot of possible meanings," he says. "It says 'stop' to people but it also says 'hi.' What is more, he says, it communicates with simplicity to potential customers.
"Here, I have a consumer who comes to me and says very loudly I want a brand that's very simple and cheap," he said. Accordingly, Heyah was launched to a mixture of initial effects.
For competitors, Hensler-Bryniarski said Heyah has initially incited "panic." He says that Centertel's advertisements for the Idea brand that are running concurrent with Heyah's employ a yellow hand, which is a knock-off of the original concept of PTC. He adds that G7 has phoned up television stations airing the Idea advert to complain that it is unfair.
Idea dismisses the claims that it is stepping on Heyah turf in its advertising. In fact, it claims that it is not being reactionary in its adverts.
Jacek Kalinowski, Centertel spokesman, says that the company launched its own inexpensive "Dla Każdego" product in mid-January and that later this year it would launch a more inexpensive version of its pre-paid Pop service, but he declined to offer any further details about this forthcoming latter product.
Of the Dla Każdego product, he says that it targets an over-30-year-old crowd, which differs from Heyah's 15-25 urban target market. Similarly, he notes that Idea employed the image of a human hand in its advert last year before the Heyah computer-rendered hand design hit the streets. Besides, he says, the hand image is a very common advertising tool.
In the long run, he adds, it is less important for Centertel what competitors do in the pre-paid segment because "we are looking more at the post-paid customers." Pre-paid customers comprise about 60 percent of all mobile users, or more than 10 million customers.
Analysts are as-yet-undecided about what effect PTC's move will have on the mobile market as a whole.
"We'll see very soon what effect it will have on the market when March results are published," says Michał Marczak, analyst at DI Bre Bank. "The market is close to saturation point and future growth will increasingly be based on pre-paid customers." That is at odds with Kalinowski's stated strategy.
Whatever the future success of mobile operators, however, Marczak claims that PTC has spearheaded a necessary change in the market.
"It's a new sales model and this will set the tone for the future," he says. Polkomtel in particular will have to follow. Centertel is mostly subscription-based, but soon enough they'll have to turn to prepaid customers as well." On further review, he says that even if Heyah produces a vast change in the market, it is based on a very simple strategy.
"Heyah is nothing but a price cut in this segment," he says. "You could have introduced a new tariff [rather than a brand] but that would cannibalize existing revenue streams."
In terms of advertising, Heyah's aggressive multi-million euro campaign is a harbinger for agencies for the future new brands that are expected to enter Poland once regulators and competitors begin to allow mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) to sell wholesale mobile minutes via existing brand names.
"The current mobile operators are resisting allowing [MVNOs] but sooner or later the regulator will make them comply," says Marek Janicki, president at McCann-Erickson Polska, which works with Polkomtel's Plus GSM brand. Janicki adds that some advertisers are eagerly awaiting this market turnaround.
Asked whether PTC is also spearheading a change in the country's advertising world with its Heyah teaser campaign, Janicki said probably not. "It's not a method of advertising to do if you're not one of the first to do it because people would get fed up," he says. So PTC will likely have to try a different advert style next time around.
"(PTC) said we want to do it in two months," says Jacek Hensler-Bryniarski, managing partner at G7. "And I was like, 'Let's do it.'"
Such was the apparent decision-making style behind Heyah - the new brand launched by PTC to address what its consumer studies had confirmed to be a directly unmet demand in the country, the price-sensitive youth segment. This launch of inexpensive services - untied to mobile phone purchases - has pledged to transform the mobile industry by, hopefully, lowering prices for consumers and opening a door to another lucrative market segment. And, following the rule of what is a highly competitive market, PTC competitors are expected to follow suit with their own similar offerings.
"Customer satisfaction of [mobile telecom] consumers in Poland is lower than in other countries mainly because of prices," Hensler-Bryniarski says of the impetus behind Heyah. He explains that if one simplifies the mobile market for advertising purposes, then there are just two key segments, those who desire state-of-the-art products and services and those who only need phones for calls and SMSs.
The latter group does not demand "all the bells and whistles," Hensler-Bryniarski says.
Thus was born Heyah for the simpler customer and the concept of the red hand, which was advertised without naming the new brand in a "teaser campaign," before announcing the brand in full two weeks ago amid much market speculation. Hensler-Bryniarski, who seems well schooled in western advertising parlance, recalls just how, out of a handful of branding ideas, PTC and G7 concluded with the much-publicized hand.
"The first thing we did was to write up the brand concept," he says. "We didn't start to think about products and price. We wrote up concepts to see that they would communicate [in terms of] tonality and personality. And we quickly wrote what I call the heart of the brand."
In the final stages of the decision-making process he said the group pared the number of ideas to two - the now recognizable hand under the name of Heyah and "a little funny head" under the name of Buzz.
Why choose the hand over the head?
"We picked the hand because we wanted to come up with a brand that didn't need any explanation," he says. PTC wanted a simple, telling symbol that, when posted up in shops, would signify exactly what Heyah was.
"Also the hand has a lot of possible meanings," he says. "It says 'stop' to people but it also says 'hi.' What is more, he says, it communicates with simplicity to potential customers.
"Here, I have a consumer who comes to me and says very loudly I want a brand that's very simple and cheap," he said. Accordingly, Heyah was launched to a mixture of initial effects.
For competitors, Hensler-Bryniarski said Heyah has initially incited "panic." He says that Centertel's advertisements for the Idea brand that are running concurrent with Heyah's employ a yellow hand, which is a knock-off of the original concept of PTC. He adds that G7 has phoned up television stations airing the Idea advert to complain that it is unfair.
Idea dismisses the claims that it is stepping on Heyah turf in its advertising. In fact, it claims that it is not being reactionary in its adverts.
Jacek Kalinowski, Centertel spokesman, says that the company launched its own inexpensive "Dla Każdego" product in mid-January and that later this year it would launch a more inexpensive version of its pre-paid Pop service, but he declined to offer any further details about this forthcoming latter product.
Of the Dla Każdego product, he says that it targets an over-30-year-old crowd, which differs from Heyah's 15-25 urban target market. Similarly, he notes that Idea employed the image of a human hand in its advert last year before the Heyah computer-rendered hand design hit the streets. Besides, he says, the hand image is a very common advertising tool.
In the long run, he adds, it is less important for Centertel what competitors do in the pre-paid segment because "we are looking more at the post-paid customers." Pre-paid customers comprise about 60 percent of all mobile users, or more than 10 million customers.
Analysts are as-yet-undecided about what effect PTC's move will have on the mobile market as a whole.
"We'll see very soon what effect it will have on the market when March results are published," says Michał Marczak, analyst at DI Bre Bank. "The market is close to saturation point and future growth will increasingly be based on pre-paid customers." That is at odds with Kalinowski's stated strategy.
Whatever the future success of mobile operators, however, Marczak claims that PTC has spearheaded a necessary change in the market.
"It's a new sales model and this will set the tone for the future," he says. Polkomtel in particular will have to follow. Centertel is mostly subscription-based, but soon enough they'll have to turn to prepaid customers as well." On further review, he says that even if Heyah produces a vast change in the market, it is based on a very simple strategy.
"Heyah is nothing but a price cut in this segment," he says. "You could have introduced a new tariff [rather than a brand] but that would cannibalize existing revenue streams."
In terms of advertising, Heyah's aggressive multi-million euro campaign is a harbinger for agencies for the future new brands that are expected to enter Poland once regulators and competitors begin to allow mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) to sell wholesale mobile minutes via existing brand names.
"The current mobile operators are resisting allowing [MVNOs] but sooner or later the regulator will make them comply," says Marek Janicki, president at McCann-Erickson Polska, which works with Polkomtel's Plus GSM brand. Janicki adds that some advertisers are eagerly awaiting this market turnaround.
Asked whether PTC is also spearheading a change in the country's advertising world with its Heyah teaser campaign, Janicki said probably not. "It's not a method of advertising to do if you're not one of the first to do it because people would get fed up," he says. So PTC will likely have to try a different advert style next time around.
