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Wishing it could be Christmas every day

Posted in General, Marketing January 15th, 2007 by Stuart Aitken

If ever evidence was needed of how important the Christmas period is for the mobile phone industry, the example of Carphone Warehouse provides it. But is it too little, too late?

YouGov’s BrandIndex, which quantifies “Buzz” - the measure of whether people have heard positive or negative things about a brand - shows a company in freefall throughout much of 2006.

As excitement about the launch of Carphone Warehouse’s broadband product TalkTalk grew, Buzz climbed to a high of 9.3 by 3rd May. By 24th November however, that figure had dropped to a shocking low of -6.8 – despite a high profile sponsorship of Channel 4’s Big Brother throughout the summer.

This huge drop is almost certainly linked to TalkTalk’s teething problems. Since launch Carphone Warehouse has consistently struggled to get the project under control. Charles Dunstone, founder and chief executive, admitted that launching TalkTalk was a “bruising” and “painful” experience for the company.

Consumers too have found the experience painful and have not been slow to criticise. Most recently a Sunday Observer column began a Why Are We Waiting Campaign - “to put pressure on companies that promote a service, only to consistently fail to deliver it to their customers” – as a response to TalkTalk’s shoddy customer service record. “TalkTalk, which prompted our campaign, has continued to be the biggest source of complaints,” said the newspaper this weekend.

The seemingly endless downward spiral was halted however in the run up to Christmas when figures improved dramatically, climbing to -2 by 18th December. While this is still nowhere near where Carphone Warehouse would like to be, the mobile phone retailer was able to report a 31.8 per cent hike in third quarter revenues following ‘another very good Christmas period’.

Interestingly the company’s sponsorship of Big Brother hasn’t done much to improve the situation. Since the show launched on 3rd January, Buzz figures have actually fallen from -0.8 to -1.13. The programme has widely been seen as a disappointment so far with three housemates leaving the Big Brother house and the arrival of Jade Goody’s family failing to deliver the expected audiences.

As 2007 begins Carphone Warehouse has steadied the ship somewhat, but there are still choppy waters ahead – especially once the Christmas feelgood factor becomes a distant memory.

About YouGov

YouGov is a full service agency, pioneering the use of the internet for market research and public consultation.

Using proprietary consumer and specialist audience panels, YouGov operates in the UK, North America and the Middle East. One of the most quoted research agencies in the UK, it has an established track record of consistently accurate and high quality survey data, expertise in constructing nationally representative samples online and developing consultation and deliberative research techniques. The launch of BrandIndex in 2005, which monitors the brand health of over 1,100 brands continuously, underlined YouGov’s reputation for innovation and the service now counts some of the UK’s largest brands amongst its subscribers.

BrandIndex is a daily measure of public perception across 32 sectors, with brands measured on a 7-point profile and data delivered next-day. For BrandIndex, YouGov interviews 2,000 people each weekday, more than half a million interviews per year. Respondents are drawn from YouGov’s proprietary online panel of more than 130,000 UK respondents. For full methodology please see http://www.brandindex.com/