Belgium: Carrefour Mobile

Launched:   February 2006
Network:      Base (KPN)
Website:      http://carrefour.eu/mobile

Background

For our first project with the retail giant we positioned the MVNO as a price leader, offering the lowest calling and SMS rates in Belgium.

From the beginning, the product was designed as simple and transparent – voice and SMS services only. We used ‘any time, any network’ pricing at just two price points with the promise that these rates would not be beaten. 

Launch

Carrefour set very tight deadlines tied to their own business goals requiring a complete service roll-out in three months. One key condition was minimising staff workload in the stores.

Our solution was an innovative ‘pick up and pay’ Starter Kit containing everything a customer needs – except a mobile phone which, as ‘switchers’, they would already have.

We were the first retail MVNO to introduce this strategy, essentially getting the product in front of people’s eyes at thousands of cash registers across Carrefour’s stores in Belgium. 

The service launched as ‘1 Mobile’, using Carrefour’s own low-cost ‘1’ brand to gain instant recognition and identify the service with this seal of value. When the service established itself, it was rebranded directly under the Carrefour name.

 

Today

Consistency, simplicity and a clear promise proved a sound strategy – Carrefour Mobile succeeded in attracting a fairly large base of loyal customers.

Carrefour Mobile plans to keep its minimalist approach of simple, transparent telecom products but will soon expand its range of retail-related features – such as exchanging airtime for loyalty points.