First Words: The New Language of Wireless Marketing

Posted on April 16, 2015

Control language and you can maintain order. This observation was made by George Orwell in his cautionary novel 1984 — a year in which, as it happened in reality, the first sale of a handheld mobile phone to a US consumer was made. The corollary to this theory (and Big Brother’s great fear) is that, if you free language, you will create an environment in which change becomes inevitable. More than 30 years since that first Motorola DynaTAC was snapped up for almost $4,000 (closer to $10,000 in today’s money) Orwell’s insight is being neatly illustrated in the US mobile market. The language being used to speak to the end user is evolving thanks to a challenge being mounted against incumbent operators by a wave of newcomers keen to change the conversation. Historically, incumbent mobile operators have relied heavily on the network in their messaging, in particular like-for-like network comparisons. By keeping the discussion centred on their networks they ensured users could only decide on their service provider by comparing the things that the operators wanted them to compare. It made sense in a world where the service and the network were one and the same. It remains a favoured…