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The World Cup of Technology and Telecoms. 13.06.2006 With the launch of the World Cup we have seen a wide range of Brand promotions across Europe to build upon the global interest in this Competition. From the likely camps of Budweiser, McDonalds, Coca Cola – always a Credit Card company and in this case MasterCard, then look to the world of Technology and Telecoms, Avaya, Toshiba, Deutsch Telecom and Philips. How about Yahoo……providing stats and super-fan blogs as well as an excellent World Cup website showing Video match highlights at a speed and resolution that are actually watch-able and enjoyable. What’s really interesting is the number of Telecom companies that have launched promotional offers around the World Cup for Alerts, Pictures, Goal Downloads and for the first time, build possible momentum for new subscription services across both mobile and broadband platforms. With falling revenues from roaming charges, mobile providers such as Vodafone, T-Mobile and 3 need to find new revenue streams and the great hope is 3G. Marketing strategies differ. In the UK for example, T-Mobile will charge £5 while 3 provides the content free. In Germany T-Mobile as a primary World Cup sponsor provides video downloads free of charge so even across boundaries the provider strategies differ (maybe if Germany beat England in the next round they might provide the highlights free of charge in the UK) However you might be interested to know that in the countries playing in the World Cup, Voice and SMS revenues ‘go through the roof’ just before, during and just after a match in which they were involved - without the massive marketing spend that the 3G providers are pumping into the market. It will be interesting to see over the course of June, what will the success of teams, especially UK and Germany impact on the uptake of 3G services over the coming months. Will either countries success create needed momentum for the adoption of 3G services in their ‘home’ markets……maybe Telefonica has the right idea providing Video highlights to all Spanish and Portuguese speaking counties. Including Spain and Portugal, the Latin America counties covered in their agreement with FIFA covers exclusive mobile rights for Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru and Venezuela and, on a non-exclusive basis, Argentina, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay and Puerto Rico. Now that’s covering your options……….
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