Phone Fun
Braterman: The man to call when it comes to selling phones.
Photo courtesy Russell Braterman
When it comes to selling mobile phones to a youthful market, Phones 4u’s marketing director Russell Braterman (MBA ’00) favors ad spots during “quirky and weird” British television shows and gimmicks that have included gangster elf-themed holiday wrapping paper and a Valentine’s Day condom giveaway. “I tell my team that ideas are key and if those ideas are good, I'll reallocate budgets to make them happen,” Braterman said in the June 3 edition of Campaign, a British trade publication.
The article cited Phones 4u’s claim “to be the UK’s fastest-growing independent mobile phone retailer” and Braterman’s role in helping the company double its share of pay-as-you-go cell phone customers last year on a marketing budget that was “less than half of its Carphone Warehouse rival.” Braterman keeps marketing costs down by targeting the teens and twenties age group and by focusing — unlike some competitors — mainly on selling mobile phones.
Although Phones 4u offers a range of mobile communication and entertainment equipment, Braterman believes cell phones are the surest bet when it comes to sales. “Mobile phones are becoming more, not less relevant,” he observed in Campaign, noting that the devices are such a mainstay of modern culture that young consumers will find a way to afford them, even during economic downturns.
A key challenge, he revealed, is capturing and holding his youthful demographic’s attention. “TV is where we have to be,” said Braterman. The Adam & Eve advertising agency, which represents Phones 4u, recently arranged large sponsorship deals with a number of youth market shows, including ITV’s “Harry Hill’s TV Burp”, a satirical comedy program. To keep up with youth culture’s changing tastes, Braterman’s management style favors minimizing red tape and encouraging agile responses to the latest marketplace trends. “We can turn on a dime,” he said in the article.
Braterman, who attended HBS as a Fulbright Scholar, joined Phones 4u in 2008, after gaining marketing experience at Unilever, McKinsey, and WPP. In addition to his view that marketing is “the most fun area of business,” Braterman says he was drawn to the field because marketing professionals’ focus on consumer and market engagement often puts them on the cutting edge of a business. “The mix of skills and disciplines involved in the role, combined with the pace and focus on tangible deliverables is intellectually, creatively, and emotionally fulfilling,” he elaborates.
At HBS, Braterman developed the skills to put marketing into context at a senior management level, but perhaps more importantly, he says, his two years at the School gave him the courage think outside the box. “It gave me a personal and professional confidence that has underpinned the risk-taking that’s sometimes necessary to deliver original work,” he notes. If last February’s condom giveaway, which landed Phones 4u’s brand name in 700 media stories, is any indication, Braterman’s creative risk-taking clearly is paying off.
