Vodafone rebrand puts the consumer first

Valerie | 22 Sep 2009, 10:33

Vodafone has announced plans to revamp its brand and marketing, part of its biggest shift in brand strategy in four years.

The mobile-phone giant is replacing its “Make the most of now” tag line after four years in favour of “Power to you” as it prepares to launch a suite of new services to capitalise on the growing popularity of the mobile internet, highlighting the increasing shift of power away from brands towards consumer led engagement.

Speaking to the Times, chief executive Vittorio Colao said of the new brand identity:

“It is not the brand talking anymore and telling the customer what to do. It is the customer who will decide. I am trying to steer the whole company in this direction… It really means that Vodafone puts the customer at the centre of what we do.”

Having fallen behind rival O2 and dropping to third place after T-Mobile UK and Orange recently announced their merger, Vodafone’s challenge ahead will be to find new revenue streams in order to capitalise on a new breed of net savvy Smartphone users.

This autumn the company will launch an open platform that lets any developer create and sell software applications that can be downloaded to mobiles, recognising the success Apple has seen selling 65,000 applications from games to travel news more than 1.5 billion times and creating a new revenue stream for handset manufacturers above and beyond the initial sale of a handset.

Indeed, Vodafone has its sights firmly set on monetisation – Colao believes that by becoming a virtual kiosk, the company will be able to charge small amounts for small purchases.

“Every day we charge 1 cent, 2 cents for a text messages billions and billions of times,” he said. “Customers trust us to do it in a proper way. We are secure and we have big customer care operations that can deal with problems if they arise.”

As newspaper publishers try to work out how they can make their business pay in a digital world, it appears that Vodafone may have the answer for now in diversifying and offering new and exciting services to secure that all important customer loyalty.