Rogers spent the last 12 months dialing into innovation, smart branding and strategic partnerships.
The nation’s largest cable and wireless operator has gone from having low to extremely high brand perception, rolled out its high-speed network to 60% of the population, launched the Wireless Box Office, the in-home WiFi calling service TalkSpot as well as a pilot project with Visa and RBC that will allow Canadians to make point-of-sale purchases with a wave of their cellphone, and increased its revenue 14% to $2.98 billion in the most recent quarter.
“Rogers is the company to beat; it’s a clear wireless leader,” says Amit Kaminer, telecom analyst for the SeaBoard Group, who calls the company a “quadruple threat.”
“They are leading in innovation, devices, subscribers and revenues,” he says. “Their partnerships and strategic foresight is really coming together… making them the best performers in that sector.”
Rogers had the number for success when it became the exclusive Canadian carrier of the Apple iPhone 3G, launching the touch-screen multimedia phone in July.
The company’s wireless division activated 255,000 of the devices during the third quarter, one-third of which were new subscribers.
Rogers spent approximately $95 million subsidizing and marketing the iPhone, with a big push on promotions, PR and what John Boynton, senior VP and chief marketing officer, Rogers Wireless calls an “average” ad buy.
But phones rang off the hook when Rogers first announced its iPhone price plans, with the cheapest package at $60 a month. After an onslaught of consumer complaints and online petitions about the costs, Rogers Wireless cut the price of the smartphone’s data plan to $30 for customers who activated a three-year contract before a specified deadline.
“We could be this $5.5 billion dollar wireless company that’s impersonal and cold and sticks to our guns,” he says. “[But] we listen to customers… The executives read the emails, the executives went on the blogs. At the end of the day we listened and made some adjustments.”
The cable side of Rogers also enjoyed a good year by focusing its marketing on the “triple play” packaging of cable television, high-speed Internet and home phone services.
Previously, the company focused on marketing each of the products separately, but this year the emphasis was on “the advantages of having all of your services with Rogers,” says Steven Wagner, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer, Rogers Cable.
“For the first time a consumer could clearly understand that we were in each of these product offerings… so the customer or non-customer for that matter can say ‘Oh wow, Rogers does offer me all those great product and services,” says Wagner.
Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto, says that Rogers has a “restlessness to improve things” and is motivated to gain new business and additional customers.
Rogers also made inroads with the extension of its well-known “MyFive” and TalkSpot ad campaigns, which further contributed to its success this year, scoring high in brand attribution and message take away, says Boyton.
Rogers expects and delivers clear, concise advertising communications that tout its services and how those services benefit the user, says Duncan Bruce, senior vice-president, executive creative director of Publicis Canada, Rogers’ creative agency of record. That differs from competitor marketing efforts that don’t speak business or benefits.
“When you think of the “My Five” kids, instead of a fuzzy animal and things on the ad, we have a real target group audience that interacts with the product in a very meaningful way to them,” says Boynton.
Rogers also moved beyond traditional media this year, adding to its already expansive sports sponsorship portfolio by paying the Buffalo Bills $78 million for eight games (three pre-season and five regular-season games) to be played at Toronto’s Rogers Centre over the next five years.
“This is a mobile information entertainment communication medium,” says Middleton. “It keeps a profile up, and feeds back a notion in the community that Rogers is a leader.”
