You would have seen them: a series of street pole posters in the middle of the M1 North Highway, between Vox Telecom’s Head Office in Waverley and the Melrose Arch business precinct.
The posters read : Hoot if your blood runs green.
Now without sounding flippant, I honestly don’t think anyone gives a hoot. And doubt very much whether anyone will EVER hoot.
As a Vox Telepreneur (dealer) myself, I think that the good marketing people at Vox need to replace this message with one conveying tangible product benefits – and there are many. For the uninitiated, users of Vox products (the Vox Supafone for instance) can reduce their monthly telephone bills through the making of cheaper calls to cell phones (just 96c per minute to either MTN or Vodacom numbers) national numbers and international numbers – plus they can earn a rebate of 15c per minute on every call received on their Vox 087 numbers. (Similar benefits apply to Vox PABXs and switchboards).
Now these are tangible benefits. Especially to a populace battling to make ends meet in what has become a never-ending recession. Therefore, why not trumpet these benefits loudly and clearly?
The point is, many products these days are parity products offering only perceived benefits. There are not that many when you come to think of it that provide real benefits, such as money back in your pocket.
Yet this is what Vox products do. So why beat about the bush with something like “Hoot if your blood runs green?”. It sure beats me. As The Star newspaper proclaims, “Tell it like it is”.
But to be fair to the marketers at Vox (decent people if there ever were), the company has been advertising widely on TV and Radio and their advertising messages on these advertising mediums are spot on. They’re understandable and benefit-driven. People understand the “You and your ADSL” campaign through the accompanying analogies and as a result it is hard to understand why someone with an ADSL line would NOT want a Vox phone – especially as the product comes with no contracts. (Thirty days notice if you’re not happy and the phone gets collected from you, no questions asked).
Back to the street pole campaign however: the positioning of the posters is awesome. There cannot be too many motorists stuck in the morning traffic heading north to Sandton or Pretoria who don’t see the posters. I have been in this traffic many a time and as the posters are on a bend, they are hard to miss.
But I haven’t heard one motorist hoot in response to Vox’s urging. (At taxis and other motorists maybe, but not at the Vox advertising campaign).
So, to Maggie and Clayton at Vox Telecom: ditch this messaging and replace it with copy that will resonate with the passing traffic.
How about the following?
- Just 96c per minute to MTN numbers.
- Just 96c per minute to Vodacom numbers.
- Cheaper calls to national numbers.
- Cheaper calls to international numbers.
- 15c paid to you on calls received.
- Now have a nice day.
Direct. To the point. Selling the benefits of a Vox product.
You can tell I’m a copywriter.