| Marketing |
| Written by Teresa R. Perez / AdMix Marjorie / joyetteperez@yahoo.com |
| Monday, 14 December 2009 18:52 |
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Bayan didn’t happen by accident. Ethical and legal issues aside, it offers the most fascinating brand case study of the turn of the new millennium. Why? Because it has serendipity written all over. Bayan was a brand—or rather a telecommunications platform—that was completely taken over by its users. In other words, there was something inherent in the brand rather than a clever marketing ploy or major budget that connected people to Bayan. Bayan was market (rather than marketing) driven—until the integrated multimedia Lola Techie marketing phenomena, which significantly enhanced the company’s image and grew sales by 30 percent. The user base—the Bayan community—drove its success and added meaning to what Bayan stood for. An advocate and approver of the award-winning Lola Techie, Fafunwa told this columnist that the campaign has been enormously successful, generating free media impressions worth six times the value of paid media. Customer inquiries also rose by 853 percent and the customer base went up by 28 percent, despite having less than 10 percent of the competitor’s advertising budget. Lola Techie was ranked higher than any other campaign at the recent 21st Philippine Advertising Congress. BBDO Guerrero/Proximity Philippines’ campaign has been held up across the Asia-Pacific region as an example of excellence in integrated communications, having also just won a Gold Award at last week’s Asian Digital Media Awards in Beijing, China “What we wanted to do is that, again, it’s the testament of the Filipino ingenuity. We didn’t have a lot of money [since from the start]. We had to make a decision whether to do a [straight kind of] sales campaign, push another product production, or perhaps why not do something different? [There was a lot of debate within the company] and recommendations were given to me (as managing director) because some of the team understandably said, ‘Look, we need to hit our sales numbers. We should go for a regular campaign. Let’s not try anything new and fancy, let’s keep it on the tried and tested without the promotions: offer nice price and push broadband landline.’ “But there was another view within the group [and this was the one I supported] that it was time we try something different. The challenge was, given the limited resources, we couldn’t do both,” he furthered. And even more than just a sense of belonging, Bayan fostered committed solidarity. Lola Techie has now more than 1,000 friends on Facebook and thousands of people following her on Twitter. Lola Techie developed into a clique that you either belonged to or you didn’t. “What we’re trying to do was to build the relationship with the market and the customer. What distinguishes a company in the long run is the relationship with the customer. That was the brief given to BBDO Guerrero/Proximity Philippines, and they came out with this very exciting Lola Techie campaign.” It was during Fafunwa’s watch that Bayan won numerous marketing awards such as Lopez awards, Tambuli awards, Anvil awards, Cyberpress awards and, most recently, a Quill Award from the International Association of Business Communicators for the Lola Techie campaign. He has also received awards for outstanding management from the Lopez Group. Fafunwa championed a completely new industry product category: wireless landline, which gives consumers unlimited multi-network calling for the first time, contributes more than 20 percent of Bayan’s yearly revenue, and delivers an ARPU that is more than three times the industry average. He launched new services including VoIP, DSL, Metro Ethernet, IP VPN, corporate-managed services and wireless broadband and grew broadband and Internet by 80 percent. “Since joining Bayan we have expanded the company’s services from 200,000 landline customers to over 500,000 landline, broadband and wireless customers. And in the period we grew broadband and Internet by a CAGR of 80 percent, expanded data revenues by 100 percent and made almost P5 billion of debt payments,” he stressed. He supported a quality management system based on 6Sigma, TL9000 and an ISO 9000:2001 certification. Is his time over at Bayan? Fafunwa had stepped down from both positions—board and chief executive consultant—effective October 31, 2009. He has been working with the company since 1999 and has served in his current position since 2004. “The past seven years have been both challenging and very rewarding. It has been my privilege to work in the Philippines and lead a talented Bayan team dedicated to customer innovation and excellence in telecommunications.” Timing played a role in Fafunwa’s rise. As technology revolution continues to transform the business landscape, successful organizations must sustain the profits in a rapidly changing, intensely competitive global marketplace, while surviving upheavals in world politics that change their markets and labor sources. Information technology provides the tools that enable all organizational personnel to solve increasingly complex problems and to capitalize on opportunities that contribute to the success, or even the survival, of the organization. “There’s a lot of opportunity between computers and communications. But if you ask, say, [the top management] of many companies today, probably 80 percent of them would tell you that they are somewhat frustrated with the IT [and the telecoms group] in terms of what they need for their business and whether the technology is really helping them in their business strategy. If you talk to the IT group, sentiments are made the same: they’re frustrated because senior management does not seem to understand the technology [or the requirement] for their budgetary need in order to deliver those results,” he pointed out. Fafunwa’s approach is based on the fundamental premise that the major role of IT is to support organizational personnel, regardless of their functional area or level in the organization. IT supports business processes that enable companies to operate in the digital area by quickly and properly reacting to changes. In many cases, IT is the basis for aggressive proactive strategies that can radically alter the competitive landscape of any industry. “There is a disconnection between technical people and the management and whether technology is really helping the business, or is it just a cost. A lot of times, technology falls under finance.” Fafunwa’s focus is not merely on learning the concepts of IT but rather applying those concepts to facilitate business process. The reason why he recognizes the need to actively pursue other business opportunities. “How can technology [be used properly and] help in the development of a society as opposed to just being technology innovation? How is it helping the company? How is it helping the growth of a nation? This is the area I’m interested. Now is a great time to move onto new opportunities,” he explained. Fafunwa only knows too well how any information system, properly used, can be strategic, not only digitalization, but also the opportunity to use new business models. For Fafunwa, the past seven years with Bayan have been both challenging and very rewarding. “It has been my privilege [to work in the Philippines] and lead a talented Bayan team dedicated to customer innovation and excellence in telecommunications.” He had gotten a taste of what teamwork, strong work ethic and empathy could do, and is hungry to do much more. His own words were direct and simple: “There is no doubt in my mind having spent the amount of time [I have in Bayan] because it’s only from that teamwork the company survives and thrives.” In other words, when you’re winning, nothing hurts. That is the law of high morale. Fafunwa was, if anything, stronger at making marketing and promoting ideas than he was at conceiving them. He seemed to know instinctively whom to reach, whom to target to and persuade, who were the decision makers, the people who mattered in any given situation. Fafunwa will stage a comeback in another business adventure. No wonder the telecom industry drove into the ground. IN PHOTO -- It was during Tunde Fafunwa’s watch that Bayan won numerous marketing awards, such as Lopez Awards , Tambuli Awards, Anvil awards, Cyberpress Awards and most recently a Quill Award from the International Association of Business Communicators for the Lola Techie campaign. He has also received awards for outstanding management from the Lopez Group. |
