Belgian telecom operator Mobistar breaks new grounds in screwing up PR campaigns with iPhone launch

Written on July 4, 2008 – 11:36 am
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer

When Steve Jobs introduced the 3G iPhone some time ago, one of the slides he showed was the list of 22 lucky countries who were going to start distributing the groundbreaking device starting 11 July. Lo and behold, Belgium was on that list.

Now, in my home country, there are 3 major telecom operators, the biggest ones being Proximus (owned by government-controlled Belgacom) and Mobistar (part of the Orange group), followed by BASE. Mobistar was ‘chosen’ as the launch partner in Belgium, unsurprisingly since the company is part of Orange, the iPhone’s distributor in France. Note that the 3G network isn’t even operational in Belgium yet since Mobistar opted for EDGE instead, and when it will be at the end of this year, it’ll only cover 80% of the country. Proximus was a more likely partner anyhow because they already have a 3G network, but ok, Mobistar it is. Ok, Mobistar has 3G (80% coverage), BASE is EDGE. My bad.

Then something weird happened. All of the sudden, Mobistar started backtracking on the launch date, and the Apple Belgium website changed the date from 11 July to ’soon’.

Everyone was baffled, people started to vent their frustrations, and Mobistar was probably ferociously trying to fix things behind the scenes. Of course, they did nothing to engage in a conversation with the early adopters who would be their first iPhone customers.

Then, they screwed up again. Today, in a throw at the epic fail award of the year, Mobistar cancelled a press conference which it initiated to share more information about the delay of the iPhone launch. Basically, that means they are delaying their delay, officially because their ‘commercial offer isn’t fully perfected just yet’. This of course spurred a flurry of blog posts and Twitter messages bashing Mobistar, especially since no one (including members of the press) is able to reach anyone from Mobistar for comments.

Mobistar, if you’re reading, which I’m actually pretty sure you’re not: you turned something extremely potential into a massive PR campaign fail which is going to resonate for months and months. I call epic fail, and I doubt anyone will disagree. Proximus and BASE are probably rolling on the floor laughing at you right now. If it weren’t so tragic, I’d be too.

I hope you like that post!

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epic fail, iphone, iphone 3G, iphone launch, mobistar

About the author: Robin Wauters is a Belgium-based social media consultant, startup advisor, blogger, entrepreneur, Twitter fanatic, conference organizer and allround web addict. Between trying out just about every new web application that gets in his sight, he advises local startups like ContactOffice, Oxynade and Yuntaa. And when he's not busy trying to keep tabs with what's going on in the virtualization & cloud computing industry as managing editor of Virtualization.com, he's probably working on the organization of Plugg, an annual celebration of European web entrepreneurship.

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13 comments/trackbacks to “Belgian telecom operator Mobistar breaks new grounds in screwing up PR campaigns with iPhone launch”

Jul 4, 2008: Inferis’ Mind Dump » Blog Archive » iPhone losers
[...] wat een gezaag over Mobistar en de iPhone vandaag zeg. Het is *maar* een mobiele telefoon, hé. Het lijkt wel [...]
Jul 4, 2008: links for 2008-07-04 « Schedelbeuk
[...] Belgian telecom operator Mobistar breaks new grounds in screwing up PR campaigns with iPhone launch Ouch! (tags: mobistar iphone) [...]

By Bart on Jul 4, 2008

Sorry Robin, but you’re totally biased. If Apple sold it’s phone apart from a subscription we wouldn’t have this situation in the first place. But it’s forbidden to start this discussion because we all love Apple so much.

It’s clear that Mobistar was *forced* (through Orange) by Apple to launch on July 11th using 3G instead of EDGE. This was not realistic. We all new that. Communication between Orange/Apple and Mobistar didn’t really happen smoothly either.

Summarized, Mobistar is the victim of the situation Apple created. It seems Apple can’t do anything wrong…

[Reply]
By Robin Wauters on Jul 4, 2008

@Bart: As far as bias goes, you’re way off. I’ve never owned an Apple product in my life except for a first-gen iPod Shuffle.

However, I’m sure you’re right about there being two sides, but the issue at hand is how Mobistar handles communication, or rather, doesn’t. Regardless of whose fault it is, they’re screwing up now. So much for being the ‘victim’

[Reply]
By Benjamin on Jul 4, 2008

First Veerle, now you :p forget flemish influential bloggers, mobi-fail is going worldwide baby! :d
As it should be.

[Reply]
By Bart on Jul 4, 2008

@Robin: Mobistar is a bad communicator, that’s true. And it seems you’re not biased :) I own an iPod too.

[Reply]
By Mich on Jul 4, 2008

Mobistar has 3G. The only one that doesn’t is BASE that uses EDGE.

[Reply]
By Steven Verbruggen on Jul 4, 2008

Mobistar does support 3G these days .. not only recent even. I don’t know where you got this information, but it’s just wrong. No full coverage, that’s true. On the other hand: sometimes it’s even 3.5G (Guess the iphone won’t support this though :))

But one step at the time anyway: first convince people to use data in Belgium, and than we’ll talk again ;)

[Reply]
By Robin Wauters on Jul 4, 2008

Ok guys, post is updated, my bad on the Mobistar 3G error. Not really relevant for what this article is about, though :)

[Reply]
By Shahways Romani on Jul 4, 2008

I was so kind to forward this article to Miss Patti Verdoodt, PR Manager of Mobistar … so perhaps they weren’t reading the article, but by now they most definitely will be :)

[Reply]
By gk on Jul 4, 2008

I got a call 6 months ago. Mobistar wanted to know if I was still happy with their service and if I wanted to lower my expenses by signing a new contract.
I was happy, but I told them I would move to the mobile phone operator who offered me an iPhone.
Their reply: ah, ok, uhm, lots of people here in the office already have an iphone, they hacked it.
I told them I didn’t want an iphone I couldn’t upgrade and I wanted one with a gps.
I think I’m one of many who told Mobistar the same thing. Bring the iPhone to Belgium and sign me up!
So I disagree. it’s not really a failure.
And they didn’t screw it up.
When there’s no iPhone in Belgium on 11 July it will be Apple who screwed up.
Apple is the one who first made the announcement.
But we all knew it’s not legal to sell an a phone and a service in Belgium.
So what was Apple thinking?

I own several Apple products. When the iPhone comes out and it costs € 600 I will buy it.
And I’m going to stay with Mobistar. That’s what I call goodwill.
BUT when Google’s Android platform becomes available on some good looking smartphones then there’s no way I’m going to stick to my iPhone.
Apple ain’t open enough and all they care about is a lock in and your money.
I’m not saying Google is all that but Android is the way to go and the iphone platform isn’t.
If anything I would say Apple better think this through or they will be the ones who end up getting old Microsoft’s reputation.

[Reply]
By Jen on Jul 8, 2008

I’m an American expat who just arrived in Brussels this weekend. I’m looking for a new mobile and would love to be able to get a non-linked iPhone (can’t get that in America), but maybe that’s not possible in Belgium any time soon either since I read that Mobistar will get exclusivity for at least a couple of months before the others can carry it. I also just read a short article on De Standaard’s homepage that indicates Mobistar is introducing iPhone today. Ik ben echt zo in de waar! Does anyone have any further info on availability?

De Staandard article: Mobistar stelt dinsdag iPhone voor
BRUSSEL - De Belgische telecom-operator Mobistar stelt dinsdag de iPhone 3G van Apple voor. Eerder had het bedrijf de voorstelling van het toestel verschoven naar ‘een latere datum’.

In eerste instantie had Mobistar een persconferentie voorzien voor 4 juli. Die werd uitgesteld omdat de voorbereiding van de commercialisering nog niet rond was.

Op 25 juni kondigde Mobistar aan dat het de exclusieve verdeler wordt van de iPhone 3G in België. dsl

[Reply]
By Michael Richardson on Jul 11, 2008

I am also an Expat and think I will skip Mobistar they are nowhere near as good as Proximus, my wife and all my friend s switched from Base and Mobistar to Proximus, so I did the same, their Blackberry servise is pretty good and Cheaper than Mobistar’s similar offering.

BTW Mobistar are rippong pople off, According to them they are selling the Phone without a contract Obligation. BS!! they refused to sell me a phone this morning cause I wouldn’t take a contract and they had 20 in stock. Check out their website: try to buy Without contract “OUT OF STOCK” now try buying with a contract, oops they are magically in stock again…

They say the 525Euro price tag is becauseanyone can buy the phone, Not true!! They are a monopoly just like O2 and other providers the only difference is that everywhere else in the world the I-phone with 24 month contract is 200 Euro (or Equiv) in belgium it is 525 Euro. I fail to see how that is legal, But then again this is Belgium.

[Reply]

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