Cell C, new logo, new face of consumer

The new brand identity also consists of a six-colour bar, which represents the colours of the South African flag as a symbol that company cares about South Africa only and intends to cater to all customers and not just those within specific LSMs.

The new corporate identity, according to Cell C CEO, Lars P Reichelt, reflects the company's vision of understanding its customers' way of life better than anybody else does and tailoring solutions around them to enhance lifestyles and improve livelihoods. He said the decision to change the company's well-known brand was a call to action, in line with the current changes within the company.

"A brand must be relevant, appealing and inspiring to those inside as well as outside and I believe our new brand speaks to the changes we are making to improve the experience of our customers at every touch-point."

Customer experience officer

"The company intends to gain the trust of customers by being very open about the changes that are needed. Consumers are invited into dialogue and we want to engage them in the change that is happening, as we want to understand where customers are really unhappy in order to address those issues," continues Reichelt.

Cell C CEO, Lars P Reichelt and Trevor Noah, customer experience officer (CEO), celebrating Cell C's rebranding.

Reichelt said to ensure the changes are in line with what customers want, the company has partnered with comedian Trevor Noah to be "the company's eyes and ears" as the new CEO (Customer Experience Officer).

Not only will customers be able to voice their opinions to Trevor who will take it to the top, but he will also be the devil's advocate and play hardball with the company. Noah will also feature in an extensive marketing campaign that will provide customers with a platform to raise their views, concerns and frustrations by posting comments.

It has also launched an easy-to-use website, where customers from all networks can indicate where their calls drop or where they have connectivity issues. Once these issues have been addressed, the company will provide customers with feedback.

Technology transformation

Relating progress on technological transformation, Reichelt said while other mobile operators were deploying HSPA+ in pockets, it will be the first South African operator to roll out HSPA+ across its entire network and it will do so in the 900 MHz and 2100 MHz frequency bands. Its new network is all IP and uses world-leading software-defined radio technology. In summary, its new advanced 4Gs based on HSPA+ 900 covers areas that have not been economically viable before and speeds up rollout of high-speed broadband to a larger numbers of consumers. It lowers CAPEX and OPEX, allowing for more competitive offerings, yields a better overall customer experience and provides more capacity in conjunction with HSPA+ 2100.

Reichelt said the company was making good progress on its network rollout and more than 1300 base stations have already been converted to HSPA+ in the 900 MHz frequency band.

"We are currently running large scale user tests in six cities and the results are very promising. We are also conducting end-to-end tests and are enhancing and optimizing our 2G network. It will launch its new network, city by city, until nationwide 4Gs coverage was achieved. An announcement about the launch of our first 4Gs city will be made in the next couple of weeks."

The operator expects to cover 34% of the South African population by the end of 2010 with its 4Gs network and aims for 67% population coverage by mid 2011.

He concluded by stating that the recently introduced PhotoCode, that allowed South Africans to access information on their mobile phones by using QR codes, had surpassed expectations. "The application had over 15 000 downloads within the first days since launch."