Daniel Guzmics, Manager, Arthur D. Little Austria returned to the stage at MVNO Nation USA to interview Darius Allen, Co-Founder and President of Rockstar Wireless.
In their fascinating conversation, Darius broke down a business strategy that could create a new generation for MVNO branding and marketing.
Rockstar Wireless is an MVNO built in partnership with Leon “RockStar” Youngblood Jr. Youngblood is an award-winning American music producer, songwriter, recording artist and rapper, who has written and produced songs for artists such as Chris Brown, Usher, J.Lo.
On the surface, Youngblood is an unconventional figure for launching a mobile service for the public. However, with the right business model and marketing, his “RockStar” brand provided an opportunity to attract MVNO customers at scale.
Throughout this session, it became clear that the strategy Darius has used to build this business will likely lead the way for a new, more innovative wave of successful MVNOs.
The vision behind Rockstar Wireless
Darius drew on his 20 years of experience in advertising and tech, and his relationships in the music industry, to create the idea of a celebrity-backed MVNO around 2023.
Soon after that, he launched Rockstar Wireless in partnership with Youngblood. They had an intelligent strategy to use the existing brand and social media audience of a known celebrity in the US to attract a large volume of mobile customers.
But why did Darius feel this was the right time to make that move?
“The MVNO space is going to get more segmented. It’s all about the niche markets, and it’s going to get even more segmented with the niches. These music artists have great niches and good customer bases already that will follow a lot of things that they do, if it’s positioned right.”
“So, I felt like we could not just become a low-cost wireless carrier, but also provide a lot of value to that customer base as well, with perks like back-stage passes to concerts, for example.”
How does Rockstar Wireless approach social media marketing?
A key part of the strategy behind Rockstar Wireless was using the existing social media audience and active presence of RockStar, a celebrity, to capture an already-engaged demographic and convert them into MVNO customers.
But social media marketing today is highly competitive and challenging. Darius reminded the audience that it’s not just a case of attaching a famous face or celebrity brand to an MVNO and waiting for success to come easily.
He said, “You really have to know your customer, and understand what they respond to. A lot of MVNOs, and other celebrity-based brands, don’t know their customers well enough. A lot of social media marketing is really generic. You have to have content that is going to engage your audience and get them interacting with your brand.”
“As a celebrity-backed MVNO, we can’t just post a generic wireless commercial because our audience doesn’t want that. So, we have to have compelling content, funny content, viral content, but also ensure it relates to wireless.”
“For example, we have a TV series on Lookhu Network called Pick-Up Lines, which is two people going out in Las Vegas to try their best pick-up lines on people. That content has worked well for our brand because it’s funny and engaging, but it also ties back into the wireless side of things by telling the audience to ‘pick up’ a cellphone line with Rockstar Wireless.”
“And so we have engaging content that’s cool and funny, which is easy for people to share on social media. No one wants to share a wireless commercial, even though some are cool and funny. But they will share a viral clip from a funny TV show.”
“Most importantly, being an MVNO, we know the margins aren’t always great, so you have to create other revenue sources. That series we produce is now also a revenue-driven item for our MVNO business.”
What value-added services does Rockstar Wireless offer, and how has this helped build the MVNO business?
“We have over 75,000 perks,” said Darius. “Key to our brand are music-related perks, like concert tickets and back-stage passes, so we have partnerships with Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
We offer streaming, so we work with Lookhu Network as one of our streaming partners, so our customers don’t have to buy Netflix or a premium subscription somewhere else, because we have thousands of movies and TV shows in our catalogue.”
These entertainment-related value-added services align closely with the brand and the target audience’s interests, so they enhance the value proposition of the MVNO.
Additionally, Rockstar Wireless has diverse revenue streams from banking services, to devices, to insurance, and much more, all for the purpose of delivering as much value as possible to the customer base.
Darius added, “These perks help us improve our overall margins as well, as we get kickbacks from all the additional services and products our customers use.”
Using customer knowledge to strengthen your MVNO offering
Another important part of Rockstar Wireless’s customer-centric strategy is leveraging their knowledge of their customers’ data usage to tailor their offerings.
Darius explained, “People love to use Mint Mobile as a great success story because of the celebrity angle. But the one thing I took from the Mint process is they did a great job of analysing their customers, knowing how long their customers were connected to WiFi and how much data they were using. If customers are connected to WiFi 90% of the time, that’s a lot of profit for an MVNO.”
“On the other hand, one customer could have a $20 plan, and that’s all fine and dandy, but if they’re using 20GB or 30GB per month, you may be losing money on that customer. So understanding how your customers interact with your services as an MVNO is the most important thing.”
“The average user doesn’t know how much data they use each month. So, if you know your customers, you know how much data they’re using, you can add more value to their situation by customising their plans or providing them with personalised offers.”
What should be the top priority for MVNOs?
Darius admitted that having a known celebrity attached to the MVNO brand isn’t the most important factor in Rockstar Wireless’s success.
He said, “That celebrity element comes second to having a good strategy to acquire customers.
You have to know who your customer is and how you’re targeting them.”
“Yes, you can use that celebrity to get a head-start, or find common ground with an audience, but you still have to do the leg-work and execute your strategy well when it comes to marketing to those people.”
What key lesson has Darius learned while building Rockstar Wireless?
“One lesson we’ve learned is that we should’ve done more research on our BSS stack, and finding the right BSS stack provider,” said Darius.
“Don’t go with a cookie cutter solution that’s advertised everywhere. MVNOs should make sure they have control. The connectivity is fine for a lot of places, but the tech stack can be a challenge. Don’t relinquish control of your tech stack to anyone or anything.”
Key take-aways and guidance for MVNOs
To conclude the discussion and share his key take-aways for MVNOs, Darius said:
“I can’t emphasise enough the importance of knowing your audience.”
It’s crucial for MVNOs to have a deep understanding of the people you’re marketing to, how to communicate with them, what they want from your brand, how much data they’ll use, and everything else in between.
Rockstar Wireless’s approach has essentially been based on these principles:
- Know the customer
- Know exactly how much it costs to acquire a customer
- We know what their customers will respond to
- Know how to advertise to those customers
- Know how to capture and retain those customers.
