Dolphin, Racoon, Canary, Panther - which one are you?
Orange's new package
The increasing drive for apparent tariff simplicity has lead Orange to buid four new tariff packages around distinct usage patterns it has identified and labelled.
Orange says it has identified four customer types within the mobile market - the highly sociable, those who see their phone as a tool not a toy, those who love to chat, and those who expect extras as standard. It has developed a number of "simple" packages for each market.
The operator hopes the "highly sociable" customer would choose a package from Dolphin, those who use their phone as a "tool not a toy" would choose a package from Racoon, those who "love to chat" would choose a package within Canary, and those who "like extras as standard" would choose a package from Panther.
Apparently, the animal names will "resonate" with the specific customer segments. Personally, I'd "resonate" pretty loudly if any sales executive in an Orange store with a fat tie knot and shiny hair informed me I was a Racoon, which looks the closest segment to my actual usage.
See, at other times, I like to chat and, given a fair wind and a splash or two of the good stuff to drink,can even be a sociable animal. And extras as standard? Hell yeah.
Not that Orange necessarily sees things in so many shades of grey.
Neil Macgeorge, Director of Pay Monthly for Orange said: "Over the past year we've been looking at the whole market and evaluating exactly how, when and why people use their phones. From that data, we then identified four clear behavioural patterns around which we've built our new packages.
"Consequently, we're shifting the way we sell services to customers and changing the headlines on the high street from complicated tariff tables to simple messages. We're focused on offering packages which are designed to meet the different needs consumers have."
He added: "We're making it easier than ever for mobile users to find the right tariff alongside the right services for them. Whether they use their phone for work, for fun, to text, to talk, as a digital camera, as their pocket computer or to play games on, we've got a package that adds more value than ever before."
The new animal packages have been initially launched to Pay Monthly customers. Pay as you go packages will be launched later in the year.
As an example, for GBP30 a Canary gets 200 any network minutes and 75 texts, and 50 Orange off-peak minutes.
For the same money a Racoon gets his 200 minutes, but 50 extra fixed line minutes, instead of the Canaray's text/on-net minutes.
A Dolphin gets 100 minutes for GBP30, but 200 texts. A panther can only enter at GBP45, but gets 400 minutes for that, plus 100 nexts plus 25% extra anynet minutes if they buy a 3G handset.
We pause at this point to note Orange appears to be selling 3G phones on an "extra minutes" promise, although a Dolphin with 18 months' good beahviour will also be given 3 months' free email.
Within each package, customers choosing an 18 month contract will also have access to Orange's newly introduced "Magic Numbers" — customers' most frequently called Orange number. They can then make calls of up to an hour to that number and won't pay for more than a minute. Every six months Pay Monthly customers can choose an additional Magic Number.
So, get your friends on Orange, seems to be the message.
Repackaging tariffs for "simplicity" is the current trend. As is increasing uniformity between pre and post pay customers. From an industry standpoint Oranges store-front Animal campaign looks reasonably radical, although behind the no-doubt cute animal characters, what we have are some standard bundles with targeted extras if the user stays loyal for 18 months.
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