Phone number inquiry market study

To complete my blog, I did a market study about the new ARCEP law implementing the same system as in Britain ie, changing all the numbers of phone number inquiry companies into a new one begining with 118. To do it, I used www.surveymonkey.com, a study market specialized website.

26 people responded to this questionnaire : 14 males and 11 females. 72% of them are between 18 and 22 years old, the others are between 23 and 28 years old.

Question 1 : how many times per year do you give a call to a phone number inquiry company ?

This question shows that a lot of respondents do not often give a call to phone number inquiry company. However, there is a part of this sample, 5 respondents, which seems to often use this service.

Question 2 : which means do you prefer to find a phone number ?

Most people of this panel (20) prefer to use Internet to find a phone number. The second mean is the Yellow Pages but, none of those respondents answer “directory enquiries”. With the development of Internet, the difference will probably be higher.

Question 3 : which of these criteria are important for you when you give a call to a phone number inquiry company ?

The most important criteria for these respondents is the speed. Then, it is the price. I am quite surprised because I thought that the most important criteriawas the price.

Question 4 : do you think that the liberalization of the phone number inquiry market will improve the quality of the service ?

There is as many people who answered ‘yes’ to this question as people who answered ‘no’. That shows that people do not know at all which will be the consequences of the ARCEP law. Perhaps, the ARCEP should have communicated more about the implications of this law.

Question 5 : to your mind, which one of these companies did the better campaign of communication ? and question 6 : if you have to give a call to a phone number inquiry company, which one will you call ?

For some months, companies have been spending a lot of money to be the most famous phone number company. According to this sample of respondents, the company which is doing the best campaign of communication is The Number with 118218 (22 of the 26 respondants).

However, the following question shows that did not prove people will give a call to this company to have a phone number. Indeed, people answered some companies which were never or not often mentioned like the 118712, the new ‘12’ number.

118008 : the 12’s rebirth

218008 is the little brother of the 12. Indeed, Pages Jaunes, the company which was exploiting the 12, pooled the number 118008 (you can see 118008's website here). 

Pages Jaunes, which did not face to any competition before the new ARCEP's law, have to implement a very good strategy of communication. As I said in first post, they have been held more than 85% market shares since many years. So, their structure is adapted for this activity. As a consequence, a loss of customers would led them to reduce their structure by hiring people and selling assets. Stakes of their campaign of communication are really important to face with the 31 new phone number inquiry company.

Moreover, Pages Jaunes did not probably have anticipate campaigns of communication launched by some companies. Indeed, whereas before the new ARCEP's law, 12's notoriety was largely better than other phone number inquiry company, today, 118218 one is at the same level (see Les Echos website). 

Now, I will study Pages Jaunes'campaign of communication. As 118218, Pages Jaunes diffused a lot of commercials to catch people's attention. The tone of their commercials was comic too but as not as 118218 (you can see these commercials on 118008's website in the bonus category). But, lately, 118008 seems to have enforced their commercial's comic tone by showing a choral society singing 118008 on the air of a classical music. So, Pages Jaunes copies 118218's strategy. Indeed, by repeating the number 118008, people memorize it easily.

As 118218 did, Pages Jaunes also creates a kind of blog. It is telling the story of a man (who is wearing yellow clothes like in the commercials) who have to discover each days, thanks an index, a new village or small town. I find this way of communication quite surprising. Indded, I am not sure that a lot of people know this blog.

The last important way of communication used by the Pages Jaunes is display panels on roadside. So, people see the number 118008 and that lead them to memorize it.

Finally, like les Echos'article shows, 118008 have to be worried. Indeed, now, another company has the same level of notoriety. If they want to keep their high market share, they will have to proposed to customers a high quality of services at a low cost. Pages Jaunes will probably have to face with a difficult bet.

118218, the number of all the numbers

To my mind, Le Numéro, which is the French subsidiary of the British company The Number, did one of the better communication. It is probably why, uncousciously, I choose to study this company firstly.

Firstly, I am going to do a short presentation of the company. The Number launched its services in United Kingdom on Decmber, the 10th, just after the Britain phone number inquiry liberalization. Thanks to a successful campaign of communication, The Number became quickly the first phone number inquiry company with about 45% market shares between 35% for the historical British operator, British Telecom.

The context in France is quite the same than it was in England in 2002. It is the reason why The Number decided to try to penetrate the French phone number inquiry market. As a consequence, The Number managers decided to set up implement a campaign of communication of the same kind than in Britain.

To be the most memorized number, Le Numéro used various ways of communication :

Commercials : Le Numéro is probably the company, with the Pages Jaunes, which diffused the most number of commercials. They use a comic tone. You can see some of them here.

Music : Le Numéro's commercials was so a success that its music, Gym Tonic, an old one song sing by Veronica and Davina, is currently in France among the most saled musics. Now, people associate it to the number 118 218.

Website : Le Numéro have also a website. It allows to know services proposed by Le Numéro. There is also a blog concerning the 118 218. It gives us informations about Le Numéro and phone number inquiry market.

 

Finally, marketing managers of Le Numéro create a whole world around 118218 giving it a popular image.

Goodbye “le 12″

In 2002, several mobile operators and phone number inquiry companies asked the ARCEP, the French regulator of telecommunications, to remove the French most famous phone number inquiry number which is the “12”. Indeed, alhough the French phone number inquiry market was not yet a monopoly, it had more than 85% market shares on a €300 million euro estimated market.  As a consequence, the ARCEP decided to remove the “12” and to oblige all phone number inquiries to contain six numbers and to begin by the prefixe 118, like in a lot of European countries.  As all of those numbers are not so easy to memorize, the ARCEP choose to allot them randomly. So, on June, the 15^th took place the random pool. 31 companies, which had to pay €40 000, participated (you can view the all list of those companies here). 

Bouygues obtained the number “812”, SFR, the “777”. Orange was lucky. Indeed, the French bigger mobile operator obtained the “712”, its oldest number. French Telecom spent €320 000 to obtain 8 different numbers, one for each of its subsidiary company.  Currently, it exits 22 different phone numbers. All of these number phones are new. To become the first number in term of notoriety, each of these companies had to set up a good marketing strategy. I am going to study the marketng strategy of the biggest phone number inquiry companies.