BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR TELECOMS PROFESSIONALS LEADER BONDING EXPERIENCE

Weighing up the strengths of telecoms operators’ brands as they seek to connect with their customers

with their customers. Coca-Cola, one of the world’s

A

Mary Lennighan Editor

Total Telecom

biggest brands, this month launches a new Superbowl campaign featur- ing its animated polar bear mascots. Live from their online home, the bears will watch and pass comment on the game, entertainment and traditional TV ads that accompany the finale of the American football season. The company says it is “capitalising on the growing trend of second screen media consump- tion to extend its connection with fans,” beyond the TV to the PC and social media universe.

Bonding is not just about building a rapport with the consumer

But building a strong brand is

intrinsically linked to the quality or usefulness of the product behind it; Coca-Cola would not sell 1.7 billion servings per day purely on the back of a recognisable logo and some quirky polar bears. As Vodafone’s group brand direc-

tor Clare Sheikh points out in our article on p.10, “a strong global brand is not about advertising, visi- bility or price,” but rather about making sure the product behind

dvertising is becoming more interactive as companies seek to bond

the brand solves a particular consumer need. She should know. Vodafone

claims the top spot in Brand Finance’s latest global telecoms brand ranking, produced for Total Telecom; this year we rank the top 50 telecoms operator brands world- wide, as well as separately ordering the industry’s biggest hardware and handset makers. Orange, which is now the fourth

most valuable telecoms operator brand in the world, knows better than most how a brand can develop. This month the company is shed- ding the France Telecom brand for domestic fixed-line services in favour of Orange, and is mulling doing the same at group level. The Orange brand is well known

on the global stage, including in India, where the company is one of a number of telcos offering services to a growing enterprise market. We look at that market, and India’s investment climate, on p.6. Bonding is not just about build-

ing a rapport with the consumer. Fixed-line operators are embracing techniques that will help them get more out of their copper access networks, including pair bonding, vectoring and phantom mode (p.17). Bonding is already taking place in some markets as telcos seek to extend the reach of high-speed broadband services... which is also one way to bond with customers in out-of-the-way places. n

FEBRUARY 2012 CONTENTS NEWS IN BRIEF 3 Timeline

A round-up of some of the major stories reported in our daily news service www.totaltele.com

BUSINESS AND FINANCE 6 Investing in India

Capital investment in India’s telecom sector continues to grow, but legal and regulatory issues and reports of widespread corruption create an air of uncertainty.

TOP 50 BRANDS 10 Brand ranking

European operators speak out on the importance of a strong brand, but in Brand Finance’s new ranking table the biggest growth comes from the BRICs.

NEXT-GENERATION ACCESS 17 Copper counting

Operators begin to embrace new techniques for extending the life of their copper access networks; there could be a knock-on effect for FTTH.

STATISTICS 19 Prime numbers

Global broadband numbers, connected TVs, LTE smartphone subscriptions, and a realistic look at video calling.

INSIGHT MAGAZINE

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