Seat at the Table

When looking at how to breakthrough the so-called messaging clutter, I always recommend that we look for the biggest market impact a company can have, and then focus on that impact.  The claim must meet two requirements to be most effective: 1) it must strike a raw market nerve; and 2) it must be backed up with third party quantitative data.

For example, when working with the mobile music company Musiwave (now owned by Openwave), our messaging focused on how Musiwave’s mobile music model would make billions of dollars for wireless carriers and the music industry.  This was backed up by a number of facts and figures such as the popularity of listening to music on the go (e.g., iPod, MP3 players), the number of people that carried and will carry phones with music capabilities (even if they didn’t know it), the willingness of consumers to purchase over the phone (a la ringtones) and the, well, desperation of carriers and the music industry to find new, profitable revenues streams (with minimal piracy issues for music publishers).  In addition, we had overseas trial offerings that showed fast adoption by consumers.  The bottom line was we could show a major market impact and back it up with facts, analyst projections and real life examples.  This was far more effective than simply stating the company was a “leader” and talking about the greatness of its technology.

A great current example of this type of messaging and business focus from FON.  FON is now saying it wants to build a huge network of WiFi Hotspots over which consumers can make VoIP calls, thus challening all wireless carriers.  FON’s messaging, though far beyond the size of the company, may well work.   Consumers have shown a willingness to shift to cheaper voice technologies and don’t really care whether it’s through GSM or WiFi/VoIP.   The wireless and VoIP industry is already talking about VoIP over WiFi  for some time and, in some cases, starting offerings (Skype and potentially wireless carriers themselves). 

FON simply could have said it wanted to let people make VoIP calls over WiFi but instead started leaning towards a challenge to carriers.  I think they should start getting far more aggressive in their messaging by essentially saying they want to put GSM and CDMA out of business in major metropolitan areas and show how it may well happen – models of cell phones with WiFi, willingness of conusmers to move to VoIP as long as it’s transparent, how carriers are considering the same, how FON will accomplish pulling together the network (demos) and how the numbers add up (number of users, pricing points etc.).   If they just focus on the technology of VoIP/WiFi, they’ll get tech attention and a little more but it may stop there.  If they focus on the major business market challenge and back it up with facts, the world make take notice and the slower major carriers may get a bit nervous.