ATT Micro Marketing for IPTV

ATT is using ice cream trucks to sell its IPTV service in Connecticut. The truck goes to Little League fields, train stations and suburban cul-de-sacs. With music playing, the truck stops and a door opens on the side to reveal a flat-screen TV showing programming from U-verse, ATT's IPTV service. It is like a magnet, people come running when the music from the ice cream truck is played.

ATT is using a variety of small-time selling strategies, such as wine-and-cheese parties, movie nights in local theaters along with the ice cream truck to sell its IPTV service one neighborhood at a time.

AT&T's U-verse service is not available in entire communities much less than the entire state. The company has to find ways to target the people that can actually buy the service. To demonstrate the differences among U-verse service and cable or satellite TV, ATT has to show it to people. Many of the selling points are based on features, from the on-screen menu to the speed of channel changes.

SureWest in the Sacramento California area has used a similar retail marketing approach. When it introduces its FTTH IPTV service into a new neighborhood, it cruises the neighborhood with a big sign on a trailer that it calls its "land blimp". It then blankets the neighborhood with door to door sales people. This approach has been successful. Surewest has consistently had about a 25 percent market share in the areas where it offers its fiber service.

This marketing approach shows what ATT is facing with its highly fragmented U-verse IPTV introduction. The coverage is not sufficient to support mass marketing techniques even on a local basis.