Campaign

The mobile phone is the new wrist watch. A laptop with Skype is the new mobile phone. The iphone with the skype application is to a geek what Heather Locklear was to horny teenagers in the 80's. In conclusion, does anyone have Heather Locklear's Skype user-name?

ahhhhh - Heather Locklear - I was born in 74 - she am vixen monkey woman of yore!

Hi Garry. We thought this post was very interesting and a ballsy attempt to muscle onto a pitch list. But, as the agency who've worked with Skype for the last 5 years, we couldn't help but comment on a couple of little inaccuracies in what you said.

Firstly, plenty of people know exactly what Skype is, how it works and why they love it. For example, Skype has 70-odd-percent brand awareness in 'mature' Western European markets. And 480m users around the world.

Secondly, you describe Skype as an "untold story". We think that's only true if you see mainstream advertising as the only way to tell a story. Thousands of people are telling stories about Skype all the time. And Skype tell their own story all the time. But they just don't do it in paid for media. Try a blog search, a Facebook search, a Twitter search, or get on Skype and talk to some of those hundreds of millions of users and you'll soon see.

Thirdly you seem to imply that, in contrast to Skype, Facebook and Twitter are more successful marketing stories. They've definitely generated more UK column inches just lately, but globally it's a different story. Plus Skype is twice the size of Facebook and growing almost as fast.

Lastly, we not sure what's needed, more than anything else, is to 'define the proposition'. To go back to your examples, we'd love to hear your take what Facebook and Twitter's 'single minded propositions' are? And assuming they each have one, how they've contributed to their success? We think modern digital brands are rich because they can be different things to different people at different times. How I use Skype for project management at work is totally different to how I use it to say goodnight to my daughter.

One last thought. We don't know if yours is the right agency to take Skype on the next stage of the journey, but we think you'd probably be better off leaving your Skypename as a contact, not a phone number :-)  But that's just us being mean. So, to make amends, if you do get on the pitch list, we'd like to extend an invitation to you (and any other agencies pitching) to come in and have a chat, and we'll try to pass on some of our genuine love for the brand.

I've been using Skype since it was awful.  I was an early beta tester (another word for weirdo geek). Skype is now very very good.  Picture quality isn't as good as iChat but not everyone has a Mac (yet).  

The great thing about Skype is that it's cross-platform.

The problem isn't awareness (Skype is pretty well known globally), the problem is changing the way people communicate.  Humans are pretty conservative ie. with all these multi-platform outlets for watching video we still like to settle back in front of the telly.  

Making a casual phone call and setting up a video chat on a computer are two different things and still use two different parts of the brain.  I launched 3 video calling some 8 years ago at TBWA when we wuz there Garry.  No one was interested in using it. Now all the operators offer it and the non-use of it is universal.  

Happy to join any think-tank that might contribute tolearning/changing attitudes.  Or maybe just a free breakfast as I missed the one last week.  

Have a loverly day all you CLBeta-ers x

Wow. Skype sounds amazing! Thanks for the tip. Guys, can I return the favour? You should check out this search engine I've been using. It's called Google and it's at www.google.com (sorry about all those w's - they stand for "world wide web"). Anyway plug any old thing into the Google box and you get the most amazing list of things to do with that word! Brilliant!

I agree with all that Stephen Ward wrote, below. In the early days, Skype was novel but crap. It's come a long way since then...

Just remember that Skype's free only when you are speaking to another Skype member. Otherwise, the rates are a fraction of standard international call charges.

Got an idea about your new biz objective...Skype me on MHH3rd to find out.