Open thine eyes and thy CellC.. for thyself

Without a doubt the latest media craze is the new CellC brand overhaul and roll-out.

It’s been news since comedian Trevor Noah included a complaint about Cell C in one of his stand up comedy skits. That video clip was then posted on Youtube (by someone that hasn’t posted videos before and none thereafter either). Trevor’s “opinion” about the service levels of the network then evoked a magical response in the form of a full page newspaper ad in which the new Cell C CEO apologises to Trevor for the appalling service and expound on how they intend to jack up their service offering. Within the same week the company launched – with three full page ads in the Sunday Times, anew website and a few other things – a brand new logo, a new brand roll-out and announces new brand ethos and Trevor Noah as their new CEO (Customer Experience Officer).

Now I personally never believed that video was authentic stand-up comedy – because it was Trevor Noah. I mean this is the same guy whose voice is used on the kulula.com call centre IVR, whose face is currently that of the (sheeps that mean sheet in Isizulu) Lekke Flavour campaign, and who can forget the SARS TV commercial of a few years back. “Hi, Trevor here.. no not that Trevor”. I mean c’mon.. Trevor Noah is just known for lending his face and voice to anybody with deep enough pockets, so no surprises there. Anyway this post is not about Trevor Noah, but to get a bit more background on the campaign roll-out, have a squizz at what Mandy De Waal had to say about the whole saga. For more on the new brand roll-out and some issues around the new Cell C logo, check out Paul Jacobson’s take on the new Cell C logo.

There are two things wrong with all this though.

Trevor Noah
Apart from the fact that the young Trevor Noah is pocketing some serious dosh being the face (and maybe voice as well, now that the pay-off line “For Yourself” is no more) of yet another major brand, I think he’s completely oblivious to the saying “in for a penny, in for a pound”. The first risk he’s running is that if this campaign does not create the projected buzz given the money spent, guess who’s gonna be the “lamb to the slaughter”. Dude’s got his whole career ahead of him and he takes gambles of this magnitude. This could be a career killer. The first reason the suits are gonna look for when the campaign doesn’t turn into cash as fast as it should is the first thing people saw and associated with the brand, win this case the new CEO (customer experience officer) of Cell C.
What this also says is that Trevor Noah has had his ego inflated (by us his adoring fans and ticket buyers to the shows) to such an extent that he now feels that because he CAN (and indeed he can) sell the “sheeps that means sheet in Isizulu”( chips that mean SH*T in the Zulu language), he can sell a mobile network to South Africans. My business mentor John Malone used to say “keep to your knitting”. I’d like to pass that advice on to Trevor. Bru, you’re funny and we love your work.. but in the words of the inimitable James Brown.. watch yourself. The corporate monster is not your friend. I repeat.. NOT your friend.

Cell C
If I were to ask an executive at Computicket what business they’re in, I am convinced the answer that would come back to me is: “Well, we’re in the ticketing business”. And if I were to continue in that line of questioning and as him or her what product they actually sold the reply would of course be: “We sell tickets”.
I am going to take a huge risk and assume that Talaat Laham, Jeffrey Hedberg and Lars Reichelt are all intelligent individuals and that none of them were appointed because of who they know or who they are in relation to whoever else. Against the background of this assumption I can safely say that these guys should all understand the company’s business model and the very nature of the company, i.e. what business the company is in. Unfortunately none of these gentlemen were anywhere close to understanding their (without it i will die) main source of revenue. They honestly thought the company they ran sells airtime and mobile phones, and sometimes gave away mobile phones to sell more airtime. Not the case, but this is clearly what these people must have been thinking because they had the slickest advertising of any mobile network. They had the nicest decor in their outlets. They even paid the best salaries for customer service personnel and in the process managed to jack MTN’s (seriously good at what she does) Faye Barr-Sanders. Rumour has it they paid her double what MTN did. The company even trained their customer service people issuing certificates on completion and gave them free mobile phones (as opposed to the staff simcard the MTN employees get). Long story short, Cell C was so focused on doing everything that the other networks did better than they did.. that they did not even notice that the other networks ONLY make money because there are just 3 networks doing what they do. None of them were doing what they were supposed to do, which is give South Africans a better, cheaper and wider-reaching communications alternative to Telkom.

Nothing Cell C did was better. Nothing they did was cheaper. And ABSOLUTELY NOTHING they did was wider in reach because they piggy-backed on the Vodacom network. I mean they could done outrageous things like allow reverse calls and let the receiving party pay – on acceptance of course. Instead of free calls on weekends, sell R100 simcards on call per second that charges 10c per minute on weekends. Why not build infrastructure to pioneer VOIP for the common man, or build datacenters and sell IVR services with all that clout they have with Avaya already. The idea is to make communication cheaper, better and wider reaching. Not to compete with the other two stooges (Nhleko and Knott-Craig) in doing only what they saw is being done overseas. This is South Africa. We have communication needs unique to South Africa. Man, Cell C would invent a digital South African currency for everyday trade if I was in any way involved in innovation over there. But sadly I’m not, so all I can do is whine from the sideline.
The point is.. they should innovate, not follow. This brand make-over is money down the drain. You pay one comedian thousands to be an evangelist for the company. You do a damn good job at making communication better, cheaper and wider reaching and the whole damn populace will be evangelists for Cell C – FOR FREE.

Open your eyes. You don’t sell branding. You don’t sell logos. You don’t sell comedians. And you sure as hell don’t sell phones and airtime. Know your product and be the best you can be at delivering that product.. and watch your company give Nhleko and Uys a run for their money. Recognise.

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Category: Branding, Featured