Mobile Airtime Cards as Flyers
It’s fun to imagine prepaid airtime cards as flyers which Telcos have strategically placed their agent networks to distribute.
Within this context, Telcos are then intentional about information placed on them and its overall design to communicate that message. I teased out some interesting strategies they used for this specific reason.
Telcos leverage scratchcards beyond showing airtime value
Take MTN as an example:
There’s a clear emphasis on promoting their mobile app.
It does make you wonder why Glo isn’t putting their competitive data offerings in front. Instead, the USSD code to those deals is behind the card. I’m sure they have their reasons though.
MTN differentiates card value through size
The larger the overall card size, the higher the price. It makes it easy to distinguish between airtime card value without looking at the specific price on it. Glo has taken a similar approach.
Vodafone differentiates card value through colour
Each airtime price point has a distinct colour. Where do they get the colour from? The cash equivalent which the airtime card represents:
But, Vodafone's cards haven’t always been this specific narrow size.
They went from:
Reducing the card to just 33% of the original card size in 2016.
Telcos use pricing to make exchanging cash for airtime card very easy
Telco’s make cash to call card conversion easy for people by directly pricing cards using the paper money equivalent:
Ofcourse this is just an example using Vodafones cards but its true for the other mobile networks too.
However, one of this paper money and its airtime card equivalent is conspicuously missing.
This:
All 4 Telcos don’t sell the GHS1 airtime card anymore.
Without the GHS1 card, its a little more expensive for some users to meet their data bundle needs due to its restrictive nature. If you need GHS3 you can’t load GHS2 & GHS1. You must load GHS2 + GHS2 or GHS5.
BUT, … the absence of the GHS1 airtime card is by design
This is a problem mobile money helps solve. With it, you can purchase any airtime amount. Meaning, the absence of the GHS1 airtime card is by design. It gives people an incentive to load airtime unto their phones through mobile money. Through this, more money flows within the mobile money ecosystem instead of being cashed out.
Thanks for reading!
I consult on related research and data analytics projects like these. If you want to collaborate on a project, please email me using dave[my surname] at gmail dot com.
