Wednesday, January 04, 2012

App Contests for Publicity

In this article about contests held by government owned broadband networks, the take aways are perhaps hidden.

One, contests are a great way to get publicity - for a city or for your company.

Two, if it is coached as a startup or entrepreneurship kind of contest, you get big points and PR.

Three, who uses broadband? Well, techies, developers, creatives. Who do you want to advertise to? People who buy broadband. See the point?

Four, why a contest? Because you are NOT selling Internet Access. You think you are, b ut you aren't. You are selling what people can DO with that Internet Access that they buy from you. If it weren't for Facebook, Pandora and Netflix, people wouldn't feel compelled to have always available broadband.

Lastly, in an era of metering, caps, DPI, etc., advertising that you sell clean pipe might be a way to gain customers. Or that you are not the privacy cop. This is differentiation (besides price).

One final thought: the reason that the Duopoly sells bundles is three-fold: (1) churn is lower for triple-play customers; (2) ARPU is higher; and (3) they don't want to sell "just" broadband because the margins are too low.

Just something to think about.

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