*AirTouch to launch ad campaign in 3 weeks. Branding effort will focus on promise keeping (via qcom thread)
By Stephanie O'Brien, CBS
MarketWatch
Last Update: 7:19 PM ET Mar 15, 1999
Also: NewsWatch
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Wireless
telcommunications company AirTouch Communications
promises to launch an advertising campaign in about
three weeks aimed at boosting brand recognition.
The campaign will focus on promises
-- and their delivery -- to customers,
the company's chief executive, Sam
Ginn, told investors Monday at Merrill
Lynch's annual telecommunications
CEO conference.
Ginn called the existing wireless
market "busy, confused and
promotional." AirTouch (ATI) seeks to
distinguish itself and will use the ads
to demonstrate the ways in which it
does, Ginn said.
In January, Britain's Vodafone Group
Plc said it had agreed to buy AirTouch,
topping a bid by rival Bell Atlantic
(BEL), in a cash-and-stock deal valued
at about $62 billion. See archived
story. The transaction, which creates
the world's largest cellular-phone
company, ended a battle for control of
San Francisco-based AirTouch.
AirTouch shares fell 1 11/16 Monday
to close at 92 5/16.
Customer service
The ads will focus on customer service. In January,
AirTouch signed a contract with Campbell Mithun Esty,
a Minneapolis-based ad agency, according to Jonathan
Marshall, an AirTouch spokesman. The firm will
"centralize the [AirTouch] brand, products and
promotional advertising," Marshall said.
The new campaign's list of promises includes a
welcome call to all new customers within 30 days. It'll
also highlight a customer-service program under which
AirTouch customers would deal with a single
representative who would take ownership of a problem
until it's resolved, Ginn said.
The ads will also showcase AirTouch's "no regrets"
policy, which allows customers to transfer from one
calling plan to another, and a "dropped call" guarantee,
which gives customers credit when a call is cut off.
Little churn
In 1998, AirTouch's customer-service program helped
the company keep its churn rate -- the number customers
leaving the network -- down to about 2 percent, the
company boasts on its Web site.
Also on the subject of advertising, Ginn said he was
"kind of fed up with all the hype surrounding the
Internet," and he sought to make the case that wireless
communications is a bigger market, with slightly faster
growth.
Ginn said that, between 1996 and 1998, the number of
wireless users grew to about 300 million worldwide,
while the number of Internet users grew to roughly 110
million.
The wireless telecommunications business model is
superior to the Net's business model, which is
advertising-based, Ginn said. "We send customers bills
every month." |
