Spot On Public Relations, a communications firm with a long track record in the Middle East’s competitive telecom markets, today predicted increased fragmentation and complexity in the region’s telecom markets as liberalisation and hyper-competition drive new categories of services. According to the company, marketing spend by telecom operators will rise as competition increases, but future marketing campaigns that sell broad service categories rather than focusing on more specific customer needs will fail to yield the required returns. Average revenue per user or ARPU is already falling in some Middle East markets and the race is now on to develop new revenue streams for the region’s telecom sector.
“Technology is moving the telecom market towards highly complex content models but the key driver for selling new services, certainly from a positioning and marketing point of view, is towards the simplification of the message to the consumer. It’s about providing people with content and resources they want and simply communicating to them how they can get them. Right now, that’s not happening and, as a result, adoption in the region for many advanced services remains low,” said Alexander McNabb, Group Account Director at Spot On Public Relations.
McNabb, speaking during the first day of the Arab Advisors’ Group Media and Telecom Convergence 2006 conference, outlined a regional market defined by increasing national and regional competition and fast-growing hyper-competition for consumers with new categories of services being rolled out as markets continue to deregulate liberalise. The prediction is that complex content models will drive the market moving forwards, opening up different channels for different consumers. However, critical to the success of the sector is hiding this complexity and being able to offer customers simple, straightforward offers that are relevant to them. Increasing competition and a wider range of services will demand greater marketing efforts and marketing spend will increase as a percentage of ARPU (Average Revenue per Unit).
“People will act and react in different ways, at different times, to the same services and content. The market will fragment further, faster, but fragmentation can be an opportunity rather than a challenge,” McNabb explained. “The need is now to define new market opportunities, new market segments and then to address these with relevant services communicated effectively to the right audience. That’s going to require an increased market and communications investment, a smarter focus on addressing niche audiences and ripping up the ‘one size fits all’ marketing model that operators are using today. It’s also going to require smart marketing campaigns to get simple, but powerful messages across to these different audiences.”
Spot On Public Relations
Spot On Public Relations is an integrated communications firm that helps organisations position, communicate and differentiate themselves to build leadership positions and increase sales and marketing effectiveness. Spot On is the Middle East region’s first and leading communications consultancy focused on technology-driven organisations with an 11 year track record of managing communications for international companies, government departments and NGOs in the Middle East.
Spot On is the Middle East partner of Brodeur|Pleon Worldwide, one of the world’s largest communications firms with offices in 55 countries. Spot On is also a founder member of the Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA).
