A Brief Glance at Vodafone’s Multiplatform Marketing Tool

By Carlton L. BennettIE Business School-Masters in Digital Marketing

What is Club 2020?

Launched in Early 2008, Club 2020 is Vodafone’s initiative of providing a multiplatform that allows its subscribers to receive offers on their mobile phones that are of interest to them while allowing advertisers to launch 100% segmented campaigns based on users’ demographics, geography and interests.

Multiplatform

Revenue Generator

Mobile Ad Marketplace

Mobile Marketing ToolMonetized CRM

The Business ModelThe business model of Vodafone for Club 2020 is to add value to both advertisers and subscribers and as a result monetize the result of bringing these two clients together.

The Business ModelVodafone takes advantage of the paid services from the advertisers to reach its customers and also the revenue generated from the users data usage when they opt into the promotions or offers of their choice.

Pull or Push?

Club 2020 brands itself as permission based multiplatform.

The user has the option of opting in via mobile phone, voice messages or web as a result of Vodafone abiding by MMA ID CCS-97 (alternative method of entry).

The user is in control with selecting frequency of Ads, interested Ads or omitting unwanted Ads.Doubts: How specific or relevant are interests/ads for users? Do users get to select from general category interests which results in a flood of unwanted offers leaving users frequently blocking unwanted ads and reducing frequency? If so, then would Club 2020 be a semi pull strategy (push-pull hybrid)?

ConclusionBased on the doubts mentioned, could club 2020 be SPAM?

It is a possibility based on the MMA’s Best Practice. Even though the user is in control, there is still a window of opportunity for unsolicited messages based on broad interests and not so relevant or specific categories for users to chose from.

Things to Consider

• If users are not smart enough to set their preferences they could be victims of unwanted messages.

For ex. User opts in on mobile but neglects to set frequency and interests.

Therefore, club 2020 as well as each advertiser’s promotion must clearly communicate to the subscriber the objective of the program upon entering the program.