Smart LTE 2: Analyzing Smart's Marketing Angles

Image by SmartBro's Press Release

In my other article, I wrote about how I find that it's annoying, as a consumer, to have to deal with the marketing tactic which entails organizing a product launch way before making it available on the market. While this practice has succeeded as companies like Apple Inc., Asus, and now Smart Communications, have executed it, it is hardly fair for the excited consumer.

However, there are workable ways for this method to translate to actual sales. Here are a few marketing angles, as we see it:

1. Drumming up the anticipation, then making sure that the follow through of the actual product launch makes for extending and stretching the consumers' excitement. If played correctly, the hype, the drama and the emotional factor of the delay could work for the company. This would only work if the product were truly excellent, that is.
2. The advanced launch would enable the company to have consumers give the product some final bug or defect testing before its actual market availability. Then, the excitement at seeing and testing a great product would have the consumer wanting to tell friends and family all about it, giving the company a good lead time in free marketing.
3. The bug testing factor would then help the company gather feedback and make final changes before rolling it out on the market.

However, even with these benefits to having an advanced product launch, none of the benefits in these angles we see wouldn't be present in a marketing launch that's simultaneous to the actual product launch. In fact, just to play the devil's advocate with a marketing badge, here are the benefits to launching a product and making it available on the market at the same time:

1. As soon as the consumers see and experience that the product is good, even great, they can immediately snap up the offering. This would then translate to thousands, even millions of pesos in lead and immediate sales.
2. Striking while the iron is hot is still great for sales and marketing. When the consumer sees, tries and experiences the amazingness of the product offering, they can easily make an impulsive decision right there and then. Don't underestimate the power of the impulse decision! Millions of pesos and dollars have gone into company pockets simply because of hundreds of shopaholic consumers' impulse decisions.

On the whole, nothing can possibly dissuade me from my opinion that a company should make a product readily available as soon as they make a major event to introduce it to consumers. Either that, or offer the product immediately after: like days or just a week maximum after the major event. What Smart Communications did really badly was to inform its promo girls that the actual market launch is still INDEFINITE. If consumers knew the date, they will at least be able to watch out for when to start rolling out the sleeping mats in front of the stores where the product will be available. Or estimate the time when the stampedes dwindle and then come out to get the product.

Either way, this isn't a gripe against Smart Communications, per se. Rather, this is constructive criticism how companies could do things better, especially to make things easier for their consumers, the target of these marketing efforts and these product developments.