Globe’s iPhone 3G and the Groundswell
The Groundswell is actually a term coined in a new book that analyzes in-depth this whole new phenomenon of social networking; of consumers en masse being empowered to connect and have a voice through web-based technologies. In fact, the subtitle “Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” says a lot about the arguments of the book. Further info from their website reads as follows
“A groundswell is rising among your customers. Are you ready?
Right now, your customers are writing about your products on blogs and recutting your commercials on YouTube. They’re defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you in social networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon — the groundswell — that has created a permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat.
You can see it as an opportunity.
In Groundswell, two of Forrester Research’s top analysts show you how to turn the force of customers connecting to your own advantage. Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff show how leading companies are gaining insights, generating revenues, saving money, and energizing their own customers. Whether you’re in marketing, research, support, sales, development, or even running the whole enterprise, there’s targeted advice here for you, backed up with real-world ROI to prove it works.”
Now on to my case study of the moment, Globe and the much-anticipated launch of the 3G iPhone.
As we all know, Apple partners exclusively with TelCo providers in specific countries as an entry point to offer the iPhone. In the recent Keynote address of Steve Jobs launching the 3G iPhone, he had announced to an applauding worldwide audience that the price had been brought down to $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB. Now, it’s no secret that there’s a catch. You see, Apple has a business model to not just make money of the sale of the iPhone, but to also get a revenue share from the monthly subscription fees that the TelCos charge consumers. It’s a good thing; After all, it allowed the base price of the handset to go down.
Now, here’s the rub. Globe increased consumer anticipation to the breaking point when it announced that it had bagged the iPhone deal and it would finally be bringing it here. First round of the Groundswell — geekboy anticipation for its arrival all over cyberspace. You couldn’t capture all the online excitement generated by their announcement. No more jailbreak to unlock the iPhone. Consumers will now go legit so that they could access Globe’s services. Greenhills is now not the only source for the unlocked iPhone. There was absolutely a lot of fanfare. That is, until Globe finally released their pricing model last week, and the groundswell started turning.
I’d like to reserve my own thoughts on the pricing because that’s not really the point of this entry. The point is this : Google “Globe iPhone 3G too expensive” and jump right to the blogs and check out the forums and the comments and the reactions. That’s your Groundswell moving right there.
The sad fact of the matter is that this could have been a marketing coup for Globe. This could have literally shifted market shares at a certain tier of the market. But instead, there’s just this enormous online backlash from any spited consumer who dreamt of having an iPhone, and got disappointed with the pricing.
I’m not making a judgement on the pricing model, that’s really not my place to say … after all, i’m sure that Globe has done its due diligence in studying the market as well as balancing the economics of supply and demand. But as a marketeer, I just cannot help but listen to what my consumers are saying about my company, my product, my services … my Brand. And the truth of the matter is, there are a lot of “not so nice things” being said.
But here’s the positive spin to this story.
it’s now true that online, consumers can congregate and tell you what they think about your brand, your product, your service … and sometimes they have will awful things to say. But the flipside is that at least now you do know what your consumers are thinking instantly; There’s immediate, unfiltered feedback. No more need to do the costly market surveys and research to ask consumers what’s on their minds. They are already speaking up, already volunteering information. Which leaves us with the questions, “Are you listening?”; And more importantly “Are you responding?”
You can manage the groundswell. In fact, in this day and you age, you really should. You really don’t have any choice.
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Full disclosure that Smart Communications (Globe’s main competitor) is an ardent and valued partner for Hapinoy and the WhyNot?Forum. The perspective i express here is really just a personal commentary, and has no connections to any of my dealings with either TelCo.
[...] new vocabulary was introduced by Groundswell author Josh Bernoff in this [...]