Everything Everywhere, T-Mobile to bite the dust? Orange to prevail?

[Ben]

Everything Everywhere has been a disastrous brand name from the beginning, but, to be fair, France Telecom and Deutsch Telecom did need a way of combining in the interim in a way that stopped us calling them -T-Orangé ;)

And so the speculation begins that EE has already decided to pursue the Orange brand, dropping Everything Everywhere and even T-Mobile entirely: http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/News/20932/Everything_Everywhere_silent_on_rebrand_rumours.as px

This makes absolute sense IMHO. Orange is by far the strongest brand and has international acceptance. T-Mobile is also an international brand, but without the same strength as Orange. Everything Everywhere is a non-starter.

We'll finally be back to four primary mobile brands in the UK.

[Wilt]

I don't think that combining T-Mobile and Orange will be that easy, they're both completely different value propositions.

They will either need to bring Orange down to a 'value' brand and lose the top end to O2, or ditch 'value' and lose the bottom end to Three. They would lose the benefit of the companies merging.

Perhaps they could just ditch EE and have Orange 'owning' T-Mobile.

[Ben]

I agree that the Orange and T-Mobile brands do work quite nicely in terms of encompassing the bulk of the market. I think we've discussed previously EE's use of Orange for mainstream/high-end and T-Mobile as the value proposition.

Under a singular Orange brand, the business would need to create a value offering and potentially a new sub-brand for that. O2's giffgaff is a fantastic play for the low-end, plus they have Tesco. But would DT want their T-Mobile brand relegated to such extreme value levels given that it's a global proposition? I've a feeling that they'd prefer the T-Mobile brand be dropped from the UK in its entirety than go that far.

[Hands0n]

The subsuming of T-Mobile into the Orange brand will be disastrous for all things T-Mobile in the UK. They will lose their so-called "low end" customer to other brands for sure. Is that what the deal was meant to deliver? Precisely nothing much at all? What would be the point other than to drive one brand name out of the UK market place?

Orange has been all but ruined by France Telecom, as have the other businesses that that once-PTT has acquired. To see T-Mobile go the same way, at the hands of the same parent company, is such a crying pity.

[miffed]

Well I'll be sad to see T-mobile go, having watched them evolve from Mercury, have terrible coverage as one2one and then eventually mature into (at one point) a bloody good network, first past the post with HSDPA ..... Plus it was their idea to not kick customers in the balls every time we had the cheek to use data !
What a shame - I'd rather see the back of Orange TBH.

[Ben]

I'd rather see the back of Orange TBH.
Well, France Telecom. But yes, this.

[miffed]

Yes , of course Orange in their heyday were also pretty awesome -Amazingly Helpful and polite CS (what was that term of endearment we used to have on the net for Orange CS reps ? .... anyone ?) ... Orange care, and the super fast HSCSD was pretty groundbreaking delivering a blistering 28.8kbps for 35p a minute !! Trouble is everything that was SO good about Orange disappeared without a trace almost overnight , it deserves to be put out of its misery IMO.

[solo12002]

Well it really dint come as a shock did it, I mean a network called everything everywhere > Im not sure if they would go with either Orange or T - Mobile as sure the idea is to brand themselves. Mind you I could see them being called One !! it fits in with o2 and Three and in a way if they get rid of the Orange Brand it fits in with the past of One 2 One lol

[@NickyColman]

I've gotta say, it would be a damn shame to see -T-Mobile die and leave Orange to live on.

-T-Mobile were the first with Flext & 'Web & Walk', pretty groundbreaking stuff in their day. I can't name one thing in the past 10 years that Orange has brought to the market that has really pushed things forward. Their tariffs are horrendous (Animals from 2005), their Customer Services isn't all that, they very rarely seem to have any exclusives and they don't have a 'killer product' a la AYCE data from Three.

All this would do would be to make a bigger Orange. Would this change the new company for the better? Would Orange actually change their prices, refresh their tarrifs or create something truly new to the market? No, i don't think so. I think Orange would stay exactly as it is and -T-Mobile customers would simply migrate over to Three & O2 as their contracts came up for renewal.

If I had my choice, I'd get rid of both brands and use the opportunity to create a new brand with an all new image & style. They could phase it in with a massive publicity campaign with new tariffs and new ideas. This would not only be a merger of 2 networks, but the birth of an all new network to entice customers.

But getting rid of two established brand for a new one is a risky strategy. However, it could work. Comparisons are drawn in my mind of the Telewest + ntl: merger with Virgin Mobile to create 'Virgin Media' - an overall stronger brand than any of the previous creations.

[Sajjad Rahman]

I don't think that combining T-Mobile and Orange will be that easy, they're both completely different value propositions.

They will either need to bring Orange down to a 'value' brand and lose the top end to O2, or ditch 'value' and lose the bottom end to Three. They would lose the benefit of the companies merging.

Perhaps they could just ditch EE and have Orange 'owning' T-Mobile.

I totally agree with Wilt on this!