2006-08-27

Skype Marketing Victims

In 2005 Skype made 4 weeks in a row a 0.20 € gift to everybody in the world who applied for it (if i remember well)!
Then Skype was bought by Ebay. The gift campaigns continued in 2006, but not for everybody, as mentioned in one of my previous posts. I looked in the 2006 “gift history” of Skype (see skype campaigns and promotions). And i ranked the countries according to the generosity of Skype*.

As you can see, gifts are mostly for big North American and European countries. Anyway, Japan, Korea and Brazil also got their part. Africa??? … not one (1) country: zero, void, null, empty!

Skype marketing campaigns are clearly focusing on these countries where Skype thinks to generate most revenue and where there still is growth potential!

Why did Estonia also receive (only once) a gift, you will ask? Skype developing team is located there. Remark also that Sweden and Denmark, the countries were the founders of Skype are from (respectively Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis), also dealt in the prices. And of course the UK, were the commercial team is located.

Why not Luxemburg, where the Company is officially located?

And why not all the other countries of the World? Are there no customers there?

IMHO – in my honest opinion – (this is a deliberate mistake) they should give free minutes to the UAE (United Arab Emirates): this would be THE stunt of the year!

* “my equivalent value guesses” for the “Free SkypeOut calls from the US and Canada to UK, Mexico and Japan on three weekends” (1€), for the “Free calls to all landlines and mobile phones within the US and Canada” (5€) and for “Happy Saint Patrick's Day - SkypeOut calls to Ireland at half price” (0.5€).

2 comments:

Helen Varras said...

Holland is also one of their victims :-(

Anonymous said...

Africa is the biggest victim : (

South Africa is hosting the 2010 World cup soccer. FIFA has announced that they already have $3.5billion sponsored for this world cup, making it the biggest money earner FIFA has ever had, and the soccer is still 4years away. They only made 1.5billion in Germany this year..

Makes you think... we are not as poor as skype, ebay and paypal may think..

lets see some rewards for africa PLEASE!!!