Written by:
Mark Khoo Boo Par
Rishab Mukherjee
Ruth Chong Lee Min
Trina Bong Xueqin

Introduction

Pfingo, a new and innovative service integrating internet and mobile technology, was launched in Singapore by StarHub Limited, one of Singapore’s three major telecomm operators on 5th September 2007. Prior to the public launch, the Pfingo Sales & Marketing and Product Development team, led by Mr. Chong Pow Min, after consultation with Edelman, their PR Agency, had planned to adopt a rather "out-of-the-box" marketing paradigm, one which was wholly new to the Singapore market.

In early March 2007, the Pfingo team contacted 30 bloggers, influential in their own circuits, to try and test out the Pfingo product, use it over an extended period of time, and review it on their blogs. This initiated a three-month long closed trial period, which would finally lead to the product’s public launch in September 2007.

It was reported in CNET that StarHub Singapore announced at a press briefing that the public could sign up for Pfingo services. According to the company, commencing 2nd April 2007, the three-month trial version of Pfingo would be made available to a stipulated number of voluntary trialists on a first-come-first-served basis. The trialists would also contribute towards Pfingo’s product improvement and reviews across various web forums over the course of three months. Successful applicants would also receive S$20 (US$13.16) worth of international voice (via VoIP) and SMS credits and a choice of a 3-series number for internet telephony.

At the Singapore Management University’s PodCamp 2007, Mr. Chong Pow Min stated that at the time of chalking out the marketing plan, they expected 3000 trialists over three months. Pfingo actually had 4000 trialists in just two weeks! During the entire trial, more than 30,000 users worldwide have signed up and installed the pfingo client in their mobile phone and/or PC. Pfingo.com secured a rank of 1003 in Singapore’s top websites in terms of traffic, a commendable achievement. The social media marketing campaign had let the ball loose into the court of the internet community. The consumers became an integral part of the marketing campaign. Pfingo’s reputation future was at the mercy at the reviews and comments made by the trialists and bloggers.

Risky as such a decision might have been, were these the seeds of a social media movement in Singapore? Would the increased web traffic and excitement lead to a successful product launch in Singapore, and a steady revenue stream for Pfingo? What are the challenges that lie ahead of the senior management at Starhub?

Starhub Singapore

StarHub Limited is Singapore's second largest Information and Telecommunications Company. It offers a full and diverse range of information, communications and entertainment services over its advanced fixed, cable, mobile and Internet platforms. Targeting both consumer and corporate markets, StarHub operates a full two-way 3.5G mobile network in addition to its GSM network, a nation-wide network that delivers multi-channel cable TV services (including Digital Cable and High Definition Television) as well as ultra-high speed residential broadband internet services, and an extensive fixed business network that provides a wide range of data, voice and wholesale services.

Launched in 2000, StarHub has become one of Singapore's most innovative info- communications providers, and the pioneer in 'hubbing' - the ability to deliver unique integrated and converged services to all its customers. StarHub is listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) under the ticker symbol – T54. Here is a comprehensive list of StarHub’s services.

VoIP & SIP

VoIP is an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol. It is the family of technologies that allow Internet Protocol (IP) networks to be used for voice applications, such as telephony, voice instant messaging, and teleconferencing. VoIP services have various advantages. For example, it is very easy to secure phone calls by encrypting them over VoIP. Secondly, VoIP is location independent and callers can use VoIP connections can do so from anywhere with a stable and relatively fast internet connection. Integration with other services available over the Internet, including video conversation, message or data file exchange in parallel with the conversation, audio conferencing, managing address books, and passing information about whether others (e.g. friends or colleagues) are available to interested parties. However, VoIP has some disadvantages, the major one being the voice-lags, loss of sound quality, occasional echoes and jitters in the connections.

VoIP has become popular largely because of the cost advantages to consumers over traditional telephone networks. Overseas calls can be made at substantially cheaper rates by using VoIP services such as Skype. While VoIP-VoIP (over the internet) calls are free, VoIP-Phone (calling to a PSTN number) is often charged to the VoIP user, usually using prepaid credit. Newer models of mobile phones are equipped for web access, especially in developed economies, via 3G and Wi-Fi support. As a result, VoIP can be integrated with these mobile phones when the internet connection is active. When the phone is ‘online’, calls qualify as VoIP-to-VoIP calls, and are free.

VoIP is a relatively new technology and it has already achieved wide acceptance and use. There is still a lot to improve and it is expected to have major technological advances in VoIP in the future.

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a standard protocol for initiating an interactive user session that involves multimedia elements such as video, voice, chat, gaming, and virtual reality. SIP can establish multimedia sessions or Internet telephony calls and modify or terminate them.


Pfingo

Pfingo (pronounced with a silent ‘p’) is an acronym that stands for Phone-Finger-INternet-on the GO. Pfingo is primarily a mobile application that contains a collection of "widgets". These widgets allow one to make VOIP calls, receive push mail (a term popularized by the advent of Blackberry), read RSS feeds and access MSN Messenger. The ‘cool thing’ about Pfingo is that it is all integrated into one application and is driven by a very comprehensive backend system and works on any IP (Internet Protocol) enabled device. It includes a desktop application/client (called Pfingo Desktop) that one can install on the PC or laptop to facilitate data synchronization.

Therefore, Pfingo integrates mobile and internet technology to provide a comprehensive suite of services including VoIP, Push Mail, RSS Subscriptions, Online Data Storage, Email, and Instant Messaging available as online and desktop client and a 300K Java Application which can be run on appropriate mobile phones that support such technology and/or are Wi-Fi enabled. The services provided by Pfingo are:

pfingoACTIVE:
A set of applications that allows one to stay connected through GPRS, 3G or WIFI on one’s phone.

Push Email: Receive and reply to email on the go.
Push RSS: receive your RSS feeds and read them on the go
Instant Messaging (IM): add up to 5 MSN accounts and chat with your buddies. The chat program only supports MSN for now, with support for other protocols possibly on the way.
Remote File Storage: 10 MB of cyber space that one can sync to from the desktop and retrieve on the phone.
PIM Sync: Ability to synchronize calendar and contacts from Microsoft Outlook so one can access them on-the-go.

pfingoMAIL:
Free ad-supported 400 MB POP3/SMTP enabled email account with the ability to retrieve email from five other POP accounts.

pfingoTALK:
The pfingoTALK feature is one of the innovations provide by the suite of services. It is an SIP phone client for the PC and the mobile phone. Signing up for the service means users will get a new ‘level 3’ eight-digit Singapore localized number that begins with "3" instead of the current "9", "6" and "8". So, one has a level 3 phone number on top of his/her existing local/overseas mobile phone number. Calling Singapore numbers is free — they show up on caller ID as the ‘3’ number, and contacts can call that number and it reaches the user if he is online, or the call gets forwarded to the user’s regular phone number if he is not online. For example, a Singaporean student in the United States can sign up for a Pfingo account and circulate his level 3 number amongst his Singaporean contacts. If his contacts want to call him, they can do so from any local phone and enjoy the local calling rates instead of the international calling rates provided by telecomm operators or calling card services. The student will receive this call on his Wi-Fi connected phone in the US for free. The mobile client automatically detects whether to use a Wi-Fi network or not. Moreover, if the contacts in Singapore are also Pfingo users, they can access their accounts via the desktop or mobile client and call the student for free, as both parties would be using VoIP in that case. So, technically speaking, one could be sitting in the Coffee Society in Bangkok and chatting with his family in Singapore for free, using the free Wi-Fi service.

One can even add on to the service by subscribing to extra numbers, such as American mobile numbers. Hence, this service allows pfingo TALK to work regardless of the location; it allows users to talk for free (to any pfingo TALK number) when connected to a Wi-Fi network and any Singapore number for a monthly flat rate.

There will be more services such as pfingoGALLERY, a one stop download site for all the favorite ringtones, wallpapers, themes and java games and pfingoCOMMUNITY which is a blog community, amongst others.

Pfingo was developed to be a standalone brand independent of StarHub’s brand umbrella. Hence, although developed by StarHub, Pfingo is a network and carrier independent package.This implies that it can be used by anyone, regardless of the mobile service provider he/she subscribes to, in Singapore or overseas. This is a commendable innovation from a telecomm operator’s perspective, as most operators provide network dependent services.

Competitive Landscape

Skype
In VoIP telephony, the primary global player is Skype. Skype is free software that uses standard VoIP protocol and was created by entrepreneurs Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis, and a team of software developers based in Tallinn, Estonia. The Skype Group has its headquarters in Luxembourg. The Skype software is cross-platform and can work across operating systems like Windows, Mac and Linux. A mobile phone platform was launched on 24th April 2008 (Skype, 2008) and is also available for Play Station Portables (Skype, 2008). Skype launched its branded mobile phone -Skypephone in October 2007. The most popular features used on Skype are:

SkypeOut

Allows Skype users to call traditional telephone numbers, including mobile telephones, for a fee which varies depending on location.

SkypeIn
Allows Skype users to receive calls on their computers dialed by regular phone subscribers to a local Skype phone number. Local numbers are available for various countries, including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and the United States. A Skype user anywhere can have local numbers in any of these countries, with calls to the number charged at the same rate as calls to fixed lines in the country.

Additional features include Instant Messaging (IM), file transfer and video-conferencing. Skype has experienced rapid growth in popular usage since the launch of its services. It was acquired by eBay in September 2005 for $2.6 billion. As of the first quarter in 2008, Skype’s revenue was USD 126 million. As of December 31, 2007, Skype has 276 million user accounts. The following table shows useful performance data for Skype:



Nimbuzz

Nimbuzz is a MoIP (mobile VoIP) application compatible with virtually all mobile phones with Internet connectivity. Its features include Mobile VoIP communication, interconnection with PC VoIP applications, including Skype, Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Instant Messenger, ICQ and Jabber, Chat, text messaging, sharing photos, music, video and sending voice messages.


Fring
Fring is a peer-to-peer Mobile VoIP based internet telephony network that enables users to talk and chat using Skype, ICQ, Google Talk, MSN, AIM, Yahoo and SIP providers (Stern, 2008). The features include Mobile VoIP communication, interconnection with PC VoIP applications, including Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ,Google Talk, Yahoo! and AIM, live chat, file transfer, call history, and auto-roam in and out of WiFi hotspots. In February 2008, it was reported that more than 100,000 new users from 180 countries are now downloading, installing, and registering to use Fring each month (Schenker, 2008).

Others
Jajah.com: Jajah's primary service, Jajah Web, takes an approach called web-activated telephony, using VoIP to connect traditional phones (landline or mobile). Calls are made without download or user-installed software, and in most cases at rates lower than those of traditional phone companies or even free of charge.


Gizmo5: Gizmo5 (formerly known as Gizmo Project) is a peer-to-peer VoIP network and of a proprietary freeware soft phone for that network.

The following statistics from alexa.com show the competitive landscape in the VoIP services of the aforementioned services as juxtaposed with Pfingo.




Pfingo's Unique Selling Proposition

As Mr. Chong Pow Min states, Pfingo’s key features such as VoIP telephony, mobile phone platforms, and push-mail are nothing spectacular by themselves. However, bringing all these together in one seamless application which can operate on the desktop and mobile phone makes Pfingo the world’s first such application, and also its primary unique selling proposition. Users are comfortable using software online and on their desktops. Pfingo aims to bring this level of comfort onto the mobile phone.

Secondly, this is the first time when a Singapore telecomm company has provided a virtual number (the level 3 number) for usage by VoIP. Till recently, due to regulatory laws, Singapore telecomm providers were not allowed to issue virtual telephone numbers. Hence, this serves as a huge competitive advantage for Pfingo, as it makes Pfingo particularly lucrative for the Singaporean market. Pfingo enables PC to PC, PC to Mobile and Mobile to Mobile calls, while saving o premium IDD calls. As a result, Pfingo represent a strong option for people residing in Singapore, Singaporean students studying overseas, and people who have business operations running in or through Singapore.

Internet, Mobile & VoIP Usage in Singapore

Internet Usage in Singapore
The internet usage in Singapore is high due to good support and a sound infrastructure laid out by the Singaporean government. Its’ positioning around the globe is first class, ahead of many of its South East Asian counterparts(Lee & Peh, 2006).

With a solid infrastructure which encourages technology and usage of the internet, Singapore has a high internet penetration of 71% (IDA Singapore, 2007). The top websites viewed by Singaporeans consists mainly of search engine pages, social networking sites and social media sharing sites (Anonymous, 2007).



The demographics of the Singapore internet users are dominated mainly by the younger generation (Lee & Peh, 2006).


Mobile Usage in Singapore
Singapore has one of the highest penetration rates in the world, with a penetration rate exceeding 100%. As of 2006, Singapore had a mobile penetration rate of 105.4% with 4,836,384.4 mobile users (IDA Singapore, 2007).


Considering the sound infrastructure and technology, Singapore’s 3G subscription rate is low at only 18.27% in 2006. However, this number is likely to increase considering the past trends (IDA Singapore, 2007).


The telecomm market in Singapore is divided amongst three players. These are Singapore Telecomm, MobileOne and StarHub Pte Ltd (Anonymous, 2007). Hence, to differentiate themselves from this saturated market, while riding on the technological advances supporting the usage of mobile and internet, StarHub launched Pfingo.



VoIP in Singapore
There is an increasing trend in Singapore for businesses and consumers alike to switch from traditional land line international call services or pre-paid call card services to VoIP services. VoIP provides a cheaper alternative and opens up the way in a saturated market. However, VoIP services provided by telecomm companies are not seen as a revenue stream but rather an additional service provided to consumers to differentiate themselves in the saturated Singapore Telecoms market.

However, despite Starhub’s target market of jet-setters, local businesses with high international phone call bills, and students living abroad who make regular calls back to Singapore, businesses do not seem to be responding well to VoIP services in general. Reasons cited include mobile efficiency in Singapore did not encourage business to use VoIP (Anonymous, 2007). Consumers on the other hand were responding well to the service.

A Brief Note on Social Media in Singapore

The online world has begun to take the form of a concept that we see in the real world. What was earlier a very static exchange and repository of information has now become a dynamic two-way street transcending all physical hurdles and facilitating interaction between multiple parties. With the advent of Web 2.0 and social media tools, friends and strangers are interacting, indulging and collaborating from around to world to make more things more possible. This ‘gathering-of-people’ culture has caused the market to become a conversation rather than a one way monologue. Broadly, the conversations can be categorized into social networking (Facebook, MySpace), people with common interests forming communities of practices using blogs, knowledge hubs like wikis and online marketplaces like eBay.

This internet audience, as termed by Mr. Chong Pow Min of StarHub Singapore, are the Generation 2.0 – people who are comfortable with technology, who socialize online, blog about their opinions and current affairs, network on Facebook and LinkedIn and use instant messaging services such as MSN and Skype. Most Singaporeans who belong to this category spend at least four hours a day online.

Globally, the online world wields a tremendous amount of power, which can make or break individuals, brands or companies. However, the Singapore social media atmosphere is majorly directed towards individuals expressing personal opinions and companies using social media are a minority. The blogs in Singapore are mostly about food, gadgets and such. Not many companies have used the latent power of social media to enhance their bottom lines on shareholder value.

StarHub & The Pfingo Social Media Marketing Campaign

It’s all about the conversation
As one of the 3 telecommunications operators in Singapore, Starhub was aware that they needed to find new avenues and new revenue streams that could bring the company forward. Not wanting to leverage on the Starhub brand and technology, Starhub wanted to use Pfingo to reinvent themselves, and in the words of Mr. Chong Pow Min from Starhub, to “develop a technology and a company that is independent of Starhub. They wanted to roll out Pfingo as a service that was network and carrier neutral – that is, Pfingo would work on any IP enabled mobile phone, regardless of the service provider the user subscribed to, in Singapore, or overseas.

Together with Edelman Public Relations Worldwide and advertising agency DDB, Starhub developed a strategy to socialize with their audience, the “Generation 2.0”. The strategy was to “go underground and create unprecedented chatter in every single conversation point (Anonymous, 2008)".


Starhub realized that consumers today in Generation 2.0 do not turn to official channels of communication for sources of information. Consumers seek out like-minded individuals and take into consideration peer reviews in the form of blogs and forums. With that in mind, Starhub decided to tread into unfamiliar territory with their marketing plan – to tap into the world of Social Media. Rather that utilizing traditional media and conventional means like press releases and road shows to preach about pfingo, Starhub decided to increase their Web 2.0 presence by ‘generating dialogue’ on the web about Pfingo before its official launch.

Starhub conducted a closed trial and released Pfingo to a group of 30 bloggers, before the official launch of the product. The participants on the closed trial list were carefully selected according to their interests and personality. For example, Popagandhi (real name: Andrena) was an avid traveler, and her experiences of utilizing Pfingo outside of Singapore could communicate how useful this service was for others like her. Another blogger under the moniker Valska, was a housewife who blogs regularly as a consumer, but was not too technical when it came to tech reviews. Thus, instead of selecting specific influences like the media or individuals with high marketing value, they chose these somewhat ‘regular folks’ as they were part of the target audience that Pfingo wanted to connect with in the first place.

Once this group of bloggers was contacted, Starhub arranged for them to test out Pfingo with a new Wi-Fi enabled phone that would provide them with the best and standardized device to experience pfingo. Starhub also held an exclusive conversation with the group in the closed trial, briefing them clearly that there was no obligation to simply give the service rave reviews. Their main objective was to simply find out from the online community their honest views on this product. In undertaking a very open and transparent approach, Starhub portrayed themselves as humble and authentic, and willing to listen to their consumers. Instead of the traditional controlled means that hindered two-way communication between consumers and businesses, this approach changed the users’ perception of the service, and enabled them to have dialogue and also generate recommendations from their potential consumers.

Thus, this was Starhub’s attempt to make the end consumer an integral part of the Pfingo product development. Various online discussion forums were initiated to welcome reviews and feedback from the users.

How effective was it, really?
Starhub had aimed for about 3,000 trial users subscribing with pfingo within the first three months, but with the speed and prevalence of Social Media, they got was 4,000 new users within the first two weeks. Part of this can be attributed to the vibe that went around the blogosphere when bloggers started reviewing and talking about it. Consecutively, conversations snowballed and even rolled over to the forums.

One particular blogger even set up an unofficial pfingo blog at http://pfingoblog.blogspot.com/ with no prompting from the company. With the tremendous amount of feedback, Starhub could look into specific problematic areas like running pfingo behind firewalls, on Apple computers and even develop Pfingo versions compatible with Microsoft Vista and Linux systems. Some ‘evangelists’ visited other forums and conversations and recommended Pfingo. Mr. Brown, one of Singapore’s prominent bloggers and his partner did a full review on Pfingo on the WKF! show. Kevin Lim from Buffalo, USA, an expert in VoIP expressed his positive feedback on various blogs and a videoconference interview with Daniel and Farinelli on their tech65.org blog.

Kevin Lim from Buffalo, USA, an expert in VoIP expressed his positive feedback on various blogs and a videoconference interview with Daniel and Farinelli on their tech65.org blog.


Popagandhi wrote two blog posts, the first one rating Pfingo on Voice Clarity (A+) and Easy of Use (A). The second post was a comparative study of Pfingo against Skype and Gizmo Project. A small list of some of the trialist-bloggers and their posts are as follows:

1. Popagandhi:
   a. Post 1: About Pfingo and Rating
   b. Post 2: Comparing VoIP services
   
   
2. Valska :
   a. As My Life Is
   b. pfingoDECT
   
   
3. Mr Brown's Review on the WTF! show
4. The Mediaslut's Review
5. Justin Lee for Singapore's Entrepreneur 27
6. Oo Gin Lee, who launched the unofficial pfingo blog.
7. Denialtan's post

In an example provided by Mr. Chong Pow Min, there was an instance of a “frustrated” user, who was unhappy with the service as he was experiencing problems connecting to the service. As part of the follow up, Starhub managed to contact the blogger and identified themselves as developers who would like to help. This was an opportunity for the company to prove themselves and their authenticity to the client. That blogger was pleasantly surprised at the after-sales service, and commended Starhub on his blog for an excellent customer service.

Blog posts also managed to drive traffic towards the Pfingo official website, which greatly increased their visibility online. In a matter of a few weeks, the website secured a rank of 1003 amongst Singapore’s top websites – a commendable achievement that entailed tremendous visibility. After the Singaporean closed trial list, Starhub also went ahead with Phase 2 of their Social Media integration to identify bloggers across the region, in countries like India, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. This new trial group would experience new features in the service and would take the product to a wider regional level. In fact, in the three-month trial period, Pfingo was tried and tested by 30,000 trialists around the globe.

Mr. Chong Pow Min admits that StarHub was taking a calculated risk by embarking on a Social Media approach, as there was the potential risk of the online community not liking Pfingo, and turning against StarHub. It would only be a matter of time before mainstream media such as newspapers and magazines picked up this activity and magnified the consequences. However, senior management officials at StarHub were confident about their product and ensured that any negative reviews were dealt with quickly and professionally. StarHub believed that they had a strong product, and had found the right ‘sweet spot’ to target the product at. This innovative effort won Edelman Public Relations Worldwide the PRISM award for Best Use of New Media (Merit Winner)(IPRS, 2008).

"We are indeed very excited about our pfingo launch, and are especially encouraged by the overwhelming interest from local and global mobile and internet users alike. Over the past few months, we have collected useful feedback from the participants on what product features they liked or disliked, and worked on refining the service to better meet their expectations. It is almost like having the users as part of our product design team, and we are proud that the actual Pfingo product has been ‘co-designed’ and built together with our customers in the internet community worldwide."