Telecommunications market research is our main specialization area. We have considered it worthwhile to sum up the past year by gathering the most interesting facts related to telecom brands operating in Poland.

The telecommunications industry continues to be one of the product categories that are most active in terms of marketing communication. Play remains the leader as regards the visibility of the said communication. In 2016, we surveyed brands’ communication awareness among Polish consumers four times; in each quarterly survey Play scored as the most visible brand. The average score for top of mind advertising awareness for Play in 2016 was as high as 30%. The second most visible brand, T-Mobile, scored 20% on top of mind advertising awareness, whereas Orange scored 19%. In March 2017, top of mind advertising awareness of Play was 35%, Orange, which took the second position, was mentioned by 20% of consumers.

Also noticeable is the significant increase in the effectiveness of T-Mobile communication. At the end of 2016, the top of mind advertising awareness index for this brand was 17%, while a year ago it was only 6%.

Interestingly, the high advertising activity of Play not only has resulted in the highest awareness of the brand as a telecommunications operator, but also in the fact that Play, of all Polish brands, is generally most associated with advertising activity nationwide! In response to an open question: "Bearing in mind various product and service categories: what brands’ advertisements have drawn your attention recently?", which was asked in March 2017, as much as 33% respondents mentioned Play. Other three main telecom brands were mentioned by less than 20% of respondents each. It's less than Play, but still a lot in comparison to other product categories, which proves how strong telecom brands are in the media.

Brand visibility is not everything that matters, though, especially in the service sector. In order to grow, each and every brand has to monitor the level of trust it enjoys among existing and potential customers. To verify how effective telecom brands are in building trust among clients, we use a synthetic indicator of trust & commitment, comprising, among others, such components as: trust, meeting customer needs, responsibility, or emotional proximity.

The indicator’s value can theoretically be from 0 to 100 per cent. The average score for particular brands in 2016 was:

• Play: 37%
• Orange: 35%
• Plus: 28%
• T-Mobile: 24%

The level of trust is influenced, among other things, by how current brand users are satisfied with the level of service. We asked clients of all four largest operators about their feedback on their networks customer service. Among Play customers 48% declared that their brand offers top quality service. Only slightly lower is the level of satisfaction of Orange customers (40%) and users of Plus (37%), while T-Mobile clearly stands out in terms of service quality (28%).

Trust is only one of the factors contributing to brand equity. Beginning with 2010, we have surveyed the equity level of telecom brands in Poland. The total equity of a brand consists altogether of a dozen or so factors. The factors we take into consideration are those which have the biggest influence on purchase decisions made by consumers – and those are both emotional and rational factors. PLAY has recorded the largest increase of brand equity of all telecom operators since 2011. At the same time, the strong position of the Orange brand is worth noticing. For past 5 years it remains the strongest telecommunication brand in Poland.

*data for 2017 comes from Q1 only.

Apart from the above, our telecom market research is based on a variety of other data which we collect and will gladly provide in the future. If you have any specific questions, please contact us at: tomasz.dulinicz(at)smartscope.pl

All data provided above come from:

The Brand Image Tracking study conducted by smartscope on a nationwide, random-quota, urban sample of mobile telephony users. To achieve the goals of the above research, in the year 2016 we conducted 3400 interviews in 4 waves, each consisting of 850 interviews. The said quarterly waves were conducted in March, June, September, and December 2016.

Customer satisfaction tracking conducted on a random sample of 4 major telecommunication brands users, by telephone interviews. The results are based on the January 2017 survey among 1222 respondents.