B&T
17 March 2006
By Tanya Segger
Jack Singleton’s new business venture, Phone Names, might help the Federal Government catch more terrorists, if only because alarmed and alert citizens are able to dial an easier to recall hotline number.
Phone Names is in the business of leasing out pre-purchased 1300 and 1800 numbers mixed with names—for example 1300 Westpac—to assist with consumer recall of the organisation’s phone number.
Singleton junior’s business officially launched in October last year after seven long years of government lobbying and is based on child-like logic: that a name has better recall than a number.
Singleton is so adamant to prove the business model is solid he spent a significant amount on research upfront to compare the recall of numbers using names to those that did not.
The research conducted by Roy Morgan found that Phone Names’ 1300 Westpac number, which was promoted with less than $1m, had 44 times greater unprompted recall at 13.2%, than the National Terrorist Hotline 1800 123 400, which had a promotional spend of $30m but achieved only 0.3% in unprompted recall.
Singleton has since offered the Federal Government a Phone Name number free of charge suggesting it replace the dire terrorist hotline with’1800 BE ALERT’.
Singleton said this alternative number would not only increase recall but also save millions of dollars and perhaps even save lives.
Singleton told B&T he had not yet received a response from the Government but had only written to his local member, Malcolm Turnball, earlier this week.
“Perhaps they are a bit busy at the moment with the Commonwealth Games,” he said.
In terms of the company’s marketing strategy Singleton said there was no grand campaign plans as yet.
Instead, he has taken a grass root approach and gone direct to ad agencies to offer the service as a new marketing tool, giving them the opportunity to offer it to their clients before approaching companies direct.
“With my surname I thought the last thing I wanted ad agencies to do was to say its STW or something in disguise, knocking on the doors of our clients.
“We’ve just gone to all the ad agencies and said this is what we are going to do and without exception they all said it was a good idea … but if you ever try to steal the account we’ll hunt you down and kill you!” he said.