Orange France Promo For UMA – Do You Get It?

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Here’s a picture of an Orange France advertisement for their UMA service called "Unik" for which they now also offer a Nokia 6086. I like advertisement that is clear, easy to understand, that makes me want something and that gives me all the facts. But this one!? It tells people nothing… How should people know that this panel promotes a fixed/mobile convergence product and that you need a France Telecom DSL connection and Wifi access point to use it? Why should people want to buy this phone after seeing the pannel? There are so many other 1 Euro (with a * to the fine print) ads out there. I am really puzzled. Maybe my French readers can enlighten me?

4 thoughts on “Orange France Promo For UMA – Do You Get It?”

  1. (Warning: I work for Orange, but I’m still very p*ssed at how Unik was launched, so beware of Bias, Fool Language and CorpSpeak)

    Internally, Unik is considered as a major success, mostly because a technology hit the market far more rapidly then anyone could imagine possible, thank to new internal procedures; most of my tech-savvy friends never heard of it, though.

    The launch last Fall came with an over-all company re-branding that put marketers on top of engineers, but the ad campaign was completely gibberish for clients (the only explanation of cryptic symbolic figures was an orange “Open” on a black poster — in a non-English speaking country). I’m not going to comment on who is the most “Open” of the techies or the sellers here — but the fast that is was a big deal inside dodn’t help to notice it was a big f*ckup outsite.

    Unik branding was similar: a fish swimming (or flying) outside of its bowl. Great visuals and photo, but nothing about the seamless switch. And what is the link between a cellphone (the shiny thingy you love & hate, carry with you all the time, that rings at the wrong time, that carries the love notes from your mistress and helps your boss badmouthing you whereever you are) and a God-forsaken clueless goldfish? At least, this contradiction seems to have been adressed in the poster you show.

    In spite of having the marketers boast their victory, I do believe a fun, techno-for-you-grand’ma explanation was needed — but the whole point was a very expensive gadget, whose only real client impact was to save some money (Contradiction again?)

    I’m not sure who would have used it: companies don’t care for cost, they care for reliability, and the whole thing was untested, hence not reliable; individuals still compared it to competing offers: half the price, without the seamless (“Call you back” can be annoying, but it also is a great way to mediate your local environnement with you distant attention).

    I believe the not-so hot launch came back with a message: too expensive; and the marketers tried to resolve it by lowering the entry cost — hence the big, proud “1€” — but still refuse to give some way to the engineers by explaining what is a IP/Cell switch.

    I do believe this is a great tech, but it’s main impact is price, hence the incoherent message when trying to sell it to high-end users. I would be the first one to adopt it (signal is terrible at my place) but the overall price (you must have an Orange Internet access, etc.) remains far more expensive then having me call back using SkypeOut. And such classic VoIP is already available at the nearest Wifi area too.

  3. Actually, my reply triggered an interesting reaction from inside the company: seems that there is more to that; given the constraints, Orange actually did rather well — but I still don’t get why not being clear about what you sell is a good branding. Guess I’m not a marketing major.

  4. I am going to Paris for a month and would like to use a cellphone there. The Nokia 8086 looks interesting because it might enable me to not have to bring a laptop for internet access but it isn’t practical because it isn’t available for rent and it needs an Orange internet account, not just an Orange sim card and air time.

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