Profile: Boost Mobile

At the Boost Mobile headquarters in sunny Irvine, CA, the members of the merchandising team show up at 8:30 a.m. sporting jeans, T-shirts and flip-flops in accordance with the company's casual dress code, in its casual, project-cluttered, graffiti-tagged office.The attitude is sort of counterbalance to the growing success and ambition of this young company. Already expanded well beyond its current building, Boost is preparing for a move to a new office, but that's possibly the least monumental of the changes to come. The team is turning a once-tiny niche brand into a major, national presence in-store."Where you at?" is the company's tagline, and for those unfamiliar with Boost Mobile, don't feel embarrassed when asked, "Where you been?" Boost Mobile began as an Australian brand in 2000 and didn't enter the U.S. market until 2002, when it targeted the extreme sports crowd in Nevada and California. In 2003, the brand became a subsidiary of Nextel, reaching out to more U.S. markets and completing a nationwide launch in February 2005. That following August, Boost became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sprint Nextel Corp., when the two merged.Today, you'll find Boost prepaid phones and products nationwide in Best Buy, Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven, Fred Meyer, Meijer and Target, among others. All told, they're in 9,000 mass merchants, 8,400 independent retailers and 8,000 "Reboost" locations where consumers can add minutes to their phones, including convenience stores, ATMs and other quick-stop locations. And as Boost's presence in the market grows, so does a shift of advertising dollars toward in-store. Jim Pinkerton, national merchandise manager, says the merchandising team's budget increased by 20% in the past year alone. "The gap is changing to go more in-store, because the percentage of people who know what Boost is has grown. More customers have them, so it's easier to do more advertising. It's cheaper to do that than the spot-regional stuff, and I think we're going with more in-store dollars."The company, despite its size, rolls out high-quality counter and floor pieces, specializing in permanent displays. The mobile category is competitive and flashy, and Boost has used a hip look and hip tie-ins to gain some credibility among the young consumers it targets, particularly the urban demo.The company is just coming into its own with digital P-O-P, however. With new support from Sprint, and with a little more experience under their belts, the team is testing ideas for new interactive displays and other options for a more daring retail presence. For a personalized call-tone promotion, the team created an interactive audio display that lets shoppers sample different tones at the push of a button. The units hit shelves at Target, Best Buy, and the more accommodating indirect doors. "Down the line, we might have more interactive displays," says Pinkerton. "We only have a few in some test core markets, like surf shops and small chains. But on the other side, we're working on the way the content could be run as a consumer piece and also as a retail store training piece."Though the ideas are still in the works, one thing is certain: Expect a boost in Boost's in-store output. "It's crazy to see the numbers, how they just rolled up and up and up, and the expectations are just giant for the end of the year," says Pinkerton. Who is Boost? Even Pinkerton, the team's senior member, is still relatively new, after 4 years at Boost. The former pro surfer (Pinkerton took the title of U.S. National Champion in 1986) drew on a multitude of different experiences, from refurbishing houses, merchandising clothing for Los Angeles-based Giant Merchandising, and designing displays and buying advertising for surf eyewear leader Arnette. After joining in the effort to build Boost Mobile from the ground up, he eventually found his way into the display niche. His broad experience also earned him the responsibility of coordinating Boost's events, from trade show exhibitions to companywide meetings, and that aspect has remained in his department as well.Pinkerton began adding team members three years ago, and now the group numbers five. Matt Hackett, merchandising manager, manages development and distribution of displays for indirect retail accounts, a category made up of independent stores run through the master dealers, which are not affiliated directly with Boost.Heidi Taniguchi and Jessica Baldy, also merchandising managers, oversee P-O-P for the national retail chains. Taniguchi and Baldy work with Boost's channel marketing and art departments on development of the displays, and then oversee distribution to the retailers, whether via direct-shipping or, preferably, Boost's field marketing department.The most recent addition, Mike Johnson, sales event coordinator, joined the department to assume the role of managing events, sales meetings and trade shows, where Boost maintains its reputation for fresh, youth-directed, urban style.Since day one, Pinkerton says, the team has needed to work on different deliveries for many doors simultaneously. Depending on the promotion, the team's timeline for projects can be anywhere from a year-plus, which Pinkerton tries to allot for permanent fixtures, to their ideal 6- to 8-week time frame for smaller pieces. The team starts by working with an outsourced vendor to generate ideas based on the structural needs and some of the shapes that Boost favors. They then present those ideas to the channel marketing and art departments, who sign off on issues like how much space is needed for product, and how many messages need to appear on the P-O-P. After another round of fine-tuning, the vendor begins production. Boost still retains relationships with its pre-Sprint vendor partners, which include Displayit Inc., Atlanta; Bay Cities Container Corp., Pico Rivera, CA; Charter Printing Inc., Jacksonville, FL; TAM Printing Inc., Anaheim, CA; Island Color LLC, Farmingdale, NY; T.C.G., San Diego; Color Graphics, Costa Mesa, CA; and Nameplate Inc., Santa Fe Springs, CA. Working With Retailers In a break from the normal internal structure, the merchandising team is aligned under the sales department, and designing P-O-P is really up to what the retailer will accept, says Hackett, explaining that he learned from observation what retailers needed from Boost displays."We've had a couple generations of countertop displays, for instance. They started out as 3-foot-wide paperboard countertop displays, but we found that the stores didn't really use those displays because they covered the counter space," he says. "We now have a nice wooden piece that's ideal size for the messaging we want to put out, and it's actually going to be used by the retailer because it's small enough."For Pinkerton, the ideal merchandising space for the phones is a floorstand. "I think it's a better call to action because it's tall, and you can see it from farther away," he explains. Because of space requirements, however, placing a freestanding unit sometimes isn't possible, so the team ships posters in branded aluminum frames to attract shoppers from other areas of the store toward the Boost phones. "A lot of companies will give stores tons of stuff, throw tons of money at them and basically paint their store with all their stuff," says Hackett, describing the challenge that his brand faces when taking on the big-budget players. "What we try to do is make quality items and carve out a piece of that store that's clearly Boost. We have our countertop display, and that should be backed by our aluminum poster frame with our current messaging and, if there's room, you can put one or two other displays in there. But everything flows, everything has the same kind of look and feel."The team also sends art-covered "lifestyle cubes," and cubes with information about the phones printed on them, in place of dummy phone boxes, which they feel is more helpful to retail staff and shoppers. Additionally, they create customized phone holders for their dummy phones to replace the retailers' standard holders.That kind of boutique setup can't usually translate to the mass channel, however. "In national retail, they have restrictions, which are different for each retailer," says Taniguchi. "There are usually one to three options, and we work with one of our vendors to create a 3-D rendering for those options, and then the national account manager will go back to that retailer to get feedback, and we tweak it.""Some of them will do the same [planogram] for everybody, and then you apply your own art to whatever they've done," says Hackett. "We can have our account managers bring ideas to them, but the mass retailers pretty much dictate what kind of space we have," says Baldy. "In Radio Shack, we were able to have some creative freedom, so we did a corrugate display for them highlighting certain messaging features and our look and feel a little bit. With Wal-Mart, we get pegs and X amount of space, and we just have to maximize it as much as possible."Even when it comes to quick change-out messaging, Taniguchi and Baldy are used to customizing projects for every mass account, and they stay current with what each of their accounts will and won't approve. "With Wal-Mart, we'll provide them with tent cards, because you can finagle your way into getting some extra space. Target has headers, so we'll provide them, and then we'll usually give [our field reps] a detailed list to make sure that they message it correctly in every retailer," says Baldy.Disrupting DisruptionCompounding the demands of retail restrictions are the trials of being a still-new player in a crowded category. Boost competes with what it terms "disruptive carriers," like Metro PCS, Leapt, Virgin Mobile, T-Mobile and Cricket, in addition to a lot of regional players that are expanding. "It really has exploded," says Taniguchi, "especially the prepaid phones. A lot of carriers have just come on in the business."Because Boost phones are often placed alongside all competitors in a store's designated prepaid phone area, it's especially important to stay current with updated promotions, which can be generated either from the Boost end or from the retailers. Because of the extremely short lifespan of mobile phone styles and promotions, the team occasionally works in a time crunch. "We'll hear about a promotion at the beginning of the week, and then by the Monday of the next week, we'll have to ship different pieces," says Hackett. To amend the situation, the team aims for permanent structures with artwork that can be easily updated. Permanent structures boast a lot of silver color and angular shapes that announce Boost as a nontraditional presence in the category. Art and copy, which is generated by the marketing department, aims to speak the consumer's language while still conveying all the pertinent benefit and pricing information.When last-minute information needs to be announced, Boost has come up with creative solutions to bring national messaging to the store level. When the phone company's "Loopt" service debuted with TV commercials featuring funny, sphere-shaped human characters, the team shipped a die-cut wobbler likeness of one character to stores to attach to current displays. "It was a last-minute decision, and the field guys just had to go in and stick them on," says Pinkerton. "They can be used in different areas for different retailers, and people notice them." The constant updating leaves little room for special seasonal promotions, so for now, those are on hold. "We have to deliver huge numbers, and right now we'd love to do a Christmas theme for in-counter, but that's not something we can do at this point," says Pinkerton. "We try to make the displays as Boost-esque as they can be, and to make the actual structures timeless. We do have changes within messages, but it's not something that's been seasonally driven yet, because it's still based on the pace of getting things to market as quickly as possible.""The holiday and back-to-school seasons tend to be higher sales times, but other than that, our promotions are based on whatever the store managers are trying to do," says Hackett. On the national promotions side, adds Taniguchi, changes are made in accordance to each retailer's scheduled reset dates.In order to make sure that each retailer receives the appropriate store treatment, Boost ranks each of its retail doors with a rating of A, B or C -- A-doors being stores with the best sales volume and the most prominent location, and so on.Field RepsIn the face of constant resets and varying retailer needs, Boost's team of about 70 field representatives maintains relationships with 80% of retailers -- all those that fall into A or B classification. Maintaining open and constant communication between the headquarters and the field keeps merchandising problems at a minimum, and Pinkerton's team relies on the reps for crucial feedback on the P-O-P."We're in touch with our sales reps daily, all the time," says Baldy, who came to headquarters after a year working in the field. "We e-mail; we join their biweekly conference calls; we have direct communication with them and their regional representatives; we do ride-alongs and have them actually give us their ideas, so it's constant." The team also maintains a feedback website where field members can report any new findings and offer suggestions.The team relies on sales reps to set up displays for almost every promotion, and they design P-O-P with a 20-minute setup goal for the larger units; 10 minutes for simple art and copy change-outs. As far as shipping displays direct-to-door, however, the team is still testing the waters."We veer away from that, because we like our reps to ensure that it's up," says Baldy. "But if it's instant savings, or something came down the channel real quick, we'll drop-ship to store. We're trying it with [this next shipment], and we have a compliance question on the website to see how effective it really is."Pinkerton adds, "Particularly on the national retail side, most of the doors like the NRS stores or Radio Shack stores, they're a little bit smaller so if you deliver [a display], it will most likely find the manager. When you ship to the bigger mass merchants, it's going to go through seven departments, and then out the back door." Field feedback has been an important research tool for the team in other areas as well. Boost will often test new promotions in its indirect retail accounts, gauging feedback and checking sales data before rolling out nationwide in chains. Recently, field reps have been tracking the growing need for Spanish language on displays.As for more concrete forms of measuring P-O-P effectiveness, Pinkerton says the issue is important, but he hasn't found the right method yet. "I'd love to, but it's really hard for me to measure what our value is to getting the subscribers," he says. "I want to say it's huge, but it's really hard to read, because you don't know what drove the person there. We don't have a retail door that we can say, '50% of these stores, we don't want to do anything; the other 50%, we will send our best-of-the-best and see what the difference is.'"Niche MarketingMarketing to teens and tweens is an ultimate test of creativity. When asked how they reach out to their target audience of 13- to 24-year-olds without being labeled "cheesy," they respond that it's about trying to stay simple, authentic and focused on quality."Boost likes to promote a way of urban culture and youth culture that no other cell phone company can really imitate," says Pinkerton. The brand sponsors high-profile athletes in the extreme sports arena, such as Kelly Slater, world surfing champion, as well as lesser-known up-and-comers, who underscore the brand's "boost your life" ideology. With Boost's consumer base now extending out of the extreme sports world and into the urban landscape, the marketing team admits they are a little "green" to the culture, but they are finding that their core message still hits the spot. "I think there's a lot of ties between the two, on the look and feel. It's more artsy, it's more creative, and it pushes the envelope at different ways of communicating," says Pinkerton. "There was a certain campaign window where we used a lot of celebrities like rapper/actor Ludacris, and it was about the brand and the association with the athletes and the street credibility ... but I think that now we want to show people who aren't super mega-people. The main focus is to get back to more messaging to the consumer."Still, targeting kids means targeting parents, so Boost works to convey an image of quality in-store that parents will appreciate. "I think a lot of parents understand that their kids are into that brand situation, but they need to have clear messaging that the adults can look into to see if there are real benefits to having that phone, not just the brand," says Pinkerton. Consistency in all retail outlets is the key to earning parents' trust, says Baldy. "If you look at all of our indirect displays, they're very consistent, with the B-store [floorstand] display, the countertop displays. It just shows a quality youth product, and everything seems to be really brand-consistent through all channels."

Profile: Boost Mobile

P2PI MEMBERS

JOIN P2PI

Related Images

Business Topic

Company

Market Segment