Viber’s Plan To Win Over the usa: entice college college students

In its new “Chat” marketing campaign—aimed at college students, a key American market—Viber is wrapping promoting in the West 4th side road subway station in manhattan and the Harvard and Boston Park side road stations on the Boston T.

different aspects of the marketing campaign include partnerships with Spotify, The Fader, and Paper journal. Viber can be developing new performance in their app for 2016 that is aimed toward American users. the corporate would now not talk about it on the ­file at press time.

The service, which competes with competitors such as WhatsApp and Kik Messenger, is a shining example of the globalization of the app world. It was founded via 4 Israeli entrepreneurs and nonetheless primarily based in Tel Aviv, acquired by way of eastern e-commerce giant Rakuten ultimate year for $900 million, and boasts a British chief marketing officer accountable for its U.S. campaign. For Scott Nelson, head of Viber North the usa, his firm’s purpose is inconspicuous: to raise its American profile.

In North the us, Viber has the benefit of being a lesser­-recognized app that has name acceptance while last a fairly clean slate. “after I joined the corporate, the first thing we did used to be discuss to customers in regards to the mobile messaging app base,” Nelson says. “once we asked about Viber, ninety% of everybody we talked to had a smile come throughout their face­­, or a quick smirk,” he remembers, “they’d a visceral response in a good way to Viber, and at all times had a just right expertise,” says Nelson, including, “I’m no longer simply saying that as a marketer.”

each Line and WeChat have made bold efforts to construct an American target audience in 2015, and the Canadian firm behind Kik Messenger bought a $50 million money infusion from China’s Tencent past this 12 months to change into “the WeChat of the West.”

mother or father firm Rakuten’s monetization strategy continues to be modest. the company makes cash from selling sticky label packs to users, but most different functionality remains free. Their push on the subway and in magazines is essentially a approach to quickly build up their target audience base and compete with bigger gamers.

despite the fact that each and every of these apps is aiming for terribly different audiences and demographics, for Viber and its competition to be successful, they must identify the areas where facebook and Snapchat have weaknesses ­­and then peddle a solution that appeals to a large U.S. target market.

Viber, like its rivals, faces one huge hurdle in its plan to crack the American market: There’s simply less demand for messaging apps. a budget and plentiful text-message applications of yankee cell carriers are very so much an exception worldwide. in many other international locations, SMS messages are nonetheless pricey to ship and obtain in bulk­­. That helped Viber, WhatsApp, and Kik roll out to world prominence as app substitutes for pricey text messaging.

Likewise, whereas certainly one of Viber’s biggest global growth areas has been international VoIP calling as a Skype substitute, that is also much less of a concern for the united states.

“It’s fair to assert American customers use Viber differently,” Nelson tells quick firm. He also factors out that while their core world user base is 24-32, American users skew in the 18­-24 vary.

Viber’s American marketing campaign, a primary for a corporation that up to now relied on natural growth, goals that college demographic. “It’s a reappraisal of the product. probably the most objectives round Chat is that whereas users in the U.S. use Viber totally free calling and texting, additionally they may discuss to bloggers on it, play games, or ship stickers.”

that is why Viber is specializing in staff chat capabilities and Reddit/ProductHunt­-fashion questions and solutions with manufacturers and names including YesJulz, Alec Monopoly, Christmas Abbott, really Jules, Barclays heart, The Infatuation, and Mashable.

Nelson provides that YesJulz, a Miami­-based totally “Snapchat celebrity” who has carved a rewarding niche as a social media ambassador for manufacturers, visits various school campuses to advertise Viber at tailgate events and other occasions.

in this way, Viber is positioned as a college scholar-­friendly communications platform that’s extra open than Snapchat, less anonymous than Yik Yak, and with far fewer parents than facebook.