Marketing Strategy and SWOT Analysis of Vodafone and AT&T

Vodafone and AT&T are two well-known giants in the telecommunication industry. These two have been present in the market for many years and could succeed and become powerful and influential companies. It seems like they implement the same strategies and actions as they have similar operations, but in fact, everything is not that easy. Let’s dive deeper, discuss these two companies separately, and speak about the marketing strategies and SWOT analysis of both Vodafone and AT&T.

Let’s start from the vision and mission statements of Vodafone

Vision Statement: “We believe in the power of new communications networks and technology to transform our lives and our societies.”

We can see from the vision statement of the company, that it stays true to its initial beliefs. It continues to improve its primary operations to improve its offering and come up with something new to contribute and bring novelty to its customers’ lives.

Mission Statement: “We are optimistic about how technology and connectivity can enhance the future and improve people’s lives. Through our business, we aim to build a digital society that enhances socio-economic progress, embraces everyone and does not come at the cost of our planet.”

The mission statement clearly shows that Vodafone has a positive attitude toward the future. It believes that the operations of the company will always be hand in hand with time. The company is sure that it will always have up to date offering and will be able to make a positive change for the environment and everyone in the world.

Now it’s time to understand what branding strategies are used by Vodafone.

For this matter, let’s explore the following post from the company’s Instagram page:

We can see a very bright, vibrant, colorful, and pleasing photo in this Instagram post of Vodafone. The colors of the photo are strong and eye-catching. The overall picture evokes a positive and energetic feeling in the viewer’s mind. Moving on to the message of the post, we can see that the company encourages you to combine two actions.

It tells you to act, to explore and at the same time to share your activity with your close ones. This may seem impossible to do, but it becomes realizable if you use Vodafone. All the details of the post including the bold colors and the message make it clear that Vodafone belongs to the Hero Brand Archetype. 

What does Hero brand archetype stand for?

Desire: use brave and tough action to evidence someone’s worth

Aim: applying skills in a way that refines and makes the world better

Strategy: become as powerful, qualified, and strong as you can be

Messaging levels of Hero archetype:

Level one: Someone is being abused or intimidated and needs your assistance to overcome the situation or the problem. 
Level two: The growth of mastery, expertise, etc. through achievement, tested, or motivated via competition.
Level tree: acting like a soldier, do what you ought to do, a duty for your country, community, family, organization.
Level four: apply your competence, power, and bravery for something making difference to the world and you.

The Hero archetype would be favorable and promising for your brand if:

• It can offer innovation or invention that can bring massive impact on the world

• It offers products that make it possible for people to achieve performing at their upper limit.

• It is in an intense competition with other opponents where it wants to be the first one.

Brand Archetypes. Why do we need them in practice?

All of us know that many companies have problems in presenting their key values and attitudes. Sometimes our messaging leads to misunderstanding or it does not represent what we aimed to say in reality. Here of course the importance of the brand archetypes is very crucial. How to create a good company culture? 

What are its values? Here are some questions that need to be answered properly. “8 steps to a complete archetypal branding” e-Book tells us a lot.  We have written a book that goes deeper in these notions and reveals archetypes in specific ways. Just uncover the brand archetypes with “8 steps to a complete archetypal branding” eBook.

Brand Archetypes. Why do we need them in practice?

All of us know that many companies have problems in presenting their key values and attitudes. Sometimes our messaging leads to misunderstanding or it does not represent what we aimed to say in reality. Here of course the importance of the brand archetypes is very crucial. How to create a good company culture? 

What are its values? Here are some questions that need to be answered properly. “8 steps to a complete archetypal branding” e-Book tells us a lot.  We have written a book that goes deeper in these notions and reveals archetypes in specific ways. Just uncover the brand archetypes with “8 steps to a complete archetypal branding” eBook.

Now it’s time to look at the SWOT analysis of the company.

Strengths

Extensive market coverage: Vodafone operates internationally, which means that it covers a big network, has access to a bigger customer base, and as a result owns a huge place in the market of this industry.

Marketing: Vodafone is famous for its strong and impressive marketing. Most of the campaigns of the company were legendary and took their place in people’s minds all over the world.

Diversified offering: The company offers a wide range of products and services for both individuals and businesses.

Weaknesses

Focus on core business: Vodafone is mainly concentrated on the mobile services business for generating revenue and growth. This focus on its core business makes the business portfolio very weak.

Declining strength in Europe: Some economical conditions and Brexit resulted in poor performance of Vodafone in its home European market and lower level of generated revenues.

Declining subscriber base: According to the statistics the customer base of Vodafone is declining (except in India), which can be very risky for the company.

Opportunities

Entering rural markets: Vodafone is mainly operating in urban areas, which means that it gets the opportunity to enter rural areas in different regions where it operates.

Innovation: Technological innovations are necessary for the telecommunication industry. Vodafone can come up with something new and game-changing for the market and achieve huge growth.

Threats

Growing competition: The competition in the telecommunication industry is very intense. This may continue to result in the growth of penetration and the end loss of market share.

Saturation: Saturation in the market doesn’t allow companies to obtain a fair number of customers corresponding to the money spent on marketing for customer acquisition. 

Now it’s time to understand what segmentation strategy Vodafone chose to use.

To find out the target segment of Vodafone, let’s watch the following commercial by the company.

The commercial is truly transferring a mixture of emotions. It starts from very sad notes and becomes a very heartwarming story with a lot of carefully depicted details. The focus of the commercial is a family and the connection in it.

It depicts the difficulties that are faced when family members are distant from each other. In this case, Vodafone makes it possible to make separation easier and helps to stay connected and see each other even being far away in remote locations.

After analyzing the commercial, it becomes obvious that Vodafone has chosen the Actualizers segment to target.

So, who are the Actualizers?

Lifestyle and Values:

Actualizers are very prosperous, successful, and goal-oriented in whatever they do. They know what they want, they do everything to get what they want and are often considered perfectionists. People belonging to this segment are ambitious, but don’t always take risks. Their safety is important for this segment, and they choose it over risking. 

For actualizers, the family is always on the first place and has vital importance to them. They try to create a healthy lifestyle for the family and are very attentive to their children. They are intelligent and like to keep up with time.

Shopping Preferences:

Actualizers have very practical views on life. They are good at controlling how their money is spent. They value the quality of the products and despite being careful with the money they can easily spend it on high-quality items. They give preference to the comfort of clothing items and not to the style. People from this segment like to plan their purchases and buy everything from the same shop.

Interesting facts about the segment:

• They like reading magazines about parenting, family life, gardening, home decoration, etc.
• They like using the internet to get information about events or activities, professional or family-related topics.
• They like watching good entertainment programs on TV without side distractions. 

AT&T

Let’s move on to discuss vision and mission statements of AT&T

Vision Statement: “We aspire to be the most admired and valuable company in the world. Our goal is to enrich our customers’ personal lives and to make their businesses more successful by bringing to market exciting and useful communications services, building shareowner value in the process.”

It seems like the company is very confident about its strength, potential, future achievements, and perspectives.  It keeps its customers as the main focus and projects its success around the consumer. The company wants to bring continuous improvements and innovations to the market.

Mission Statement: Inspire human progress through the power of communication and entertainment.

It is clear, that AT&T understands the whole vitality and importance of communication. The company considers communication inseparable part of our lives and thinks that it will never lose its actuality. It wants to bring progress to entertainment and progress to people’s lives by using its main operations that will be improved in the process. 

Now, it’s time to find branding strategies used by AT&T.

To identify what strategies are used by the company, let’s look at the following post from the Instagram page of the company.

We can see a joyful picture depicting a father and a son who are playing, spending time together, and are happy. The colors of the picture are very playful, at the same time calm and comforting. The child looks very cheerful, feels safe, and comfortable.

The post informs about the operation, service that will be very handy for a parent, adult and will help to entertain a child. The company helps you to solve a valid problem and makes your life easier. All the discussed details of the picture and the post-show that AT&T belongs to the Caregiver archetype.

Now, let’s understand what Caregiver archetype stands for.

Desire: to shield and protect people from getting harmed.

Aim: helping others. 

Strategy: getting things done for others

Let’s now go through the messaging levels of Caregiver archetype:

Level One: noticing a person in need
Level Two: looking after and taking care of someone’s encumbrance 
Level Tree: keeping the balance of self-care with care for other people
Level Four: promoting the welfare of others, despite the risks or costs for you

The Caregiver archetype would be favorable and promising for your brand if:

• for which customer service provides the competitive advantage

• that help people to stay connected with and care about one another

• that help people care for themselves

Let’s look at the SWOT analysis of the company.

Strengths 

Renowned name: AT&T is one of the largest telecommunication companies in the world and has a very strong place in the market, brand value, and recognition.

Service variety: The company offers its customers an extensive range of services including ones with wired or wireless capabilities. 

Portfolio of Business: The target segment of the company includes not only individuals but also governmental agencies and businesses. This helps the company to stay risk-averse and less dependent on a specific segment. 

Weaknesses 

Investments that carry risks: AT&T makes investments in several operation areas like television that continuously lose their strength and popularity. 

Competitive industry: AT&T is in a very competitive telecommunication industry, and because of diverse offerings in the market consumers become pickier and price sensitive. 

Opportunities

Further acquisition: AT&T can consolidate and grow inorganically through the acquisition of other existing small companies in the industry.

Partnership with Apple: AT&T already has some level of cooperation with Apple/iPhone and further partnership with this giant can lead to a stronger place in the market and wireless growth.

Diversification: AT&T can try to expand into new areas that have growing popularity and profitability rather than focusing on weakening spheres like television. 

Threats

Emerging innovations: Every day there something new and innovative in the telecommunication industry, and it becomes very hard to keep up with these changes.

Weakening areas: There are some basic operational areas of AT&T that continue to fade and decline. With time these areas can no longer be actual, and the profitability of the company can suffer.

Growing competition: The competition in this industry becomes more and more intents and together with continuous saturation it will result in price wars, limitations for growth, and revenue losses.

Now, it’s time to go through the segmentation strategy of AT&T.

To understand what segment AT&T chose to target, let’s look at the following commercial of the company.

What we see in this video is a typical working environment. It is lunchtime and coworkers invited to a “taco party” are enjoying their lunch. The black guy, who is in this case the average working person approaches the group and seems very disturbed as he thought he was not invited to the gathering.

This person represents the segment that AT&T wants to target. We can see how frustrated he is because of the missed opportunity. It turns out that he was invited to the party, but the problem is he received the invitation later. Everything could have been different if he used AT&T’s service.

After analyzing the commercial and the characteristics of the black guy, we can for sure say that the target audience of AT&T are Floaters.

So, who are Floaters?

Lifestyle and Values

Floaters are very family and home oriented. They get all the best for their family from the low budget. They don’t care about themselves and how they look. They respect traditional values and would choose to do what they must do from doing something for their enjoyment. Floaters like to feel secure and stable. They think of work as a job rather than a career and don’t look for new opportunities in the workplace. These people don’t want to be responsible and instead, they prefer to be told what to do. 

Shopping Preferences:

Floaters are real bargain hunters and are always looking for discounts or offers. They give their preference to down-market brands and like to budget for every small penny. While doing shopping they look for lower prices and are very driven to quantities. Floaters are the last ones who adopt and purchase new products and new brands.

Interesting facts about the segment:

• Floaters love spending their free time home with the family
• They don’t like attending social events and doing sports
• Their main source of information is the TV
• They typically don’t use the internet.

16 Personalities (why do you need them in your business? ?)

Floaters are people aged 40-55 who have families and children. The female clients of this segment mainly spend their daily life at home, do cleaning, take care of the children. Floaters do not like to take on additional responsibilities in the workplace, they work in the same position for many years.  To find more about the Floaters you can check out our new e-book “16 personalities”.

Summing up, we were able to analyze and see how Vodafone and AT&T are different from each other by their strategies and not only, despite being in the same industry. I hope, this blog was an insightful and interesting way to get to know these companies better. Check out the main page of our website for more posts like this.