Telecom Trends

Rogers has come out with new branding for its discount brand, retaining the dog imagery, but putting the focus on Fido's home. Together with the new graphics, the new Fido branding will carry taglines: ‘giving low prices a good home’ and ‘les bons prix font les bons amis’ in French.

Together with the new brand, the new Fido launched a suite of new price plans and an ‘owner’s guarantee’: providing customers with services to control their monthly wireless bills and no surprises. These include low prices, usage alerts (at 75% and 100% of their monthly allotments), easy switching between price plans, and the option to have no term contract.

Customers can choose from a suite of Fido’s new ‘all-in’ price plans, starting from $15 per month, including plans with unlimited text messages that start at $25 per month. And yes, ‘all-in’ really means that it includes system access fees, 911 fees and all that jazz.

The old Fido was urban-centric with a younger demographic. That market is seen as heavily penetrated. The new Fido is looking to increase Canada's wireless penetration - what Rogers is referring to as the future demographic - with entry level price points that are attractive to people who have never had a cell phone before.

Fido's new approach seems to also sets its sights on Rogers' pre-paid competitors, including Virgin and PC brands that use the Bell network. Not a bad strategy since Rogers has the lowest percentage of prepaid customers of the 3 big wireless carriers in Canada.

We suspect that phones with entry level plans, such as those offered by the new Fido, are going to make their way onto a lot of holiday shopping lists.

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