Telkom changed its colours from orange to blue and yellow. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Summary
- Telkom improved its Internet service in order to better appeal to the Kenyan millennials, which is its target market and uses social media as its first source for news and information.
- Besides improving its Internet, the company changed its brand colours, from orange and black to blue and yellow to appeal to younger generation.
Telkom Kenya has reported an increase in its customer base by a
million people in six months, following its rebranding from Orange Kenya
in June 2017, and investing Sh5bn in upgrade of Internet services.
The
Communications Authority figures for July-September 2017 were already
revealing a jump in Telkom’s customer base by 18.5 per cent from the
previous quarter, to 3.4 million, from 2.8 million, increasing market
share by 1.2 per cent to 8.4 per cent.
Telkom improved
its Internet service in order to better appeal to the Kenyan
millennials, which is its target market and uses social media as its
first source for news and information.
The telecoms
firm invested Sh5 billion in upgrading its network, rolling out 500 new
sites nationally to help it launch 4G Internet and give its customers
faster Internet speeds. It put in another Sh600 million to upgrade
ibackbone and fibre infrastructure.
This drove an almost immediate rise in its market share in data
services, to 7.3 per cent by end of September 2017, from 6.2 per cent
three months earlier.
“We offered consumers a
promotional offer of free daily 4G data for our subscribers for a month
after the rebrand. This was so that they can experience the fast
download and upload speeds on our network. We are now targeting to reach
four million subscribers within Q1, 2018,” said Aldo Mareuse, Telkom
CEO.
Besides improving its Internet, the company
changed its brand colours, from orange and black to blue and yellow to
appeal to younger generation.
Research shows that brand
colours play an important role in influencing consumer purchase. The
colour yellow is optimistic and youthful and is often used to grab the
attention of consumers, according to behavioural analytics and
engagement platform Kissmetrics.
Meanwhile,
researchers have found that consumers find blue to be trustworthy and
it creates a sense of security, appealing to consumers seeking reliable
services.
“We conducted a lot of research among
consumers, customers and partners to understand their expectations of
the new brand.... From the results, we found that consumers responded
positively to these (blue and yellow) new and vibrant colours,” said
Mareuse.
Telkom Kenya also wanted consumers to identify
it as a local product that seeks to offer value to Kenyan consumers,
rather than as an international brand that was competing for the market.
This
shift towards the positioning of Telkom as a local brand followed the
sale by France Telecom of its majority stake in the company to Helios
LLP, a private equity investor based in London.
In
getting consumers to identify the brand as local, Telkom Kenya deployed a
multi-pronged marketing approach that saw it engage with consumers
through personal interactions, across publicity visits to markets,
shopping centres, schools, and colleges. The success of this approach
had been proven before.
A case study by Laurent
Muzellec and Mary Lambkin of the University College Dublin in Ireland,
analysed how consumers perceived the rebranding of the former telco
Eircell into Vodafone Ireland.
They found that after
the rebrand, Irish consumers perceived it as an English firm, where it
was seen as an international brand before.
- African Laughter
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