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Q&A: Vonage CMO Ted Gilvar On Move Into Cloud-based Business Services

Former Monster Worldwide CMO Ted Gilvar joined Vonage as its chief marketing officer on April 20 with a mission to help the company — best known for its consumer Internet-phone business — move into the business market, selling cloud-based communications services to small businesses. Having worked on both the client and agency side of the business (with stints at McKinney, Hill/Holiday, BBDO and Mullen), Gilvar says he’s ready to begin showing the owners of small businesses — who often wear many hats — that Vonage’s well-known brand can also mean effective business communications at competitive rates. Marketing Daily spoke with him about his new position.

What attracted you to the job?

When I looked at Vonage, what I saw was a very strong brand that had focused on a few businesses within the communications services world, and was under leveraged against some other opportunities. [They’ve taken] the cloud and internet technology that they’ve applied to the consumer business, and now they’re really going after the business market. There’s a great growth opportunity here. If someone can harness the power of the Vonage brand and leverage it in the right way, this company can grow tremendously. 

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What are Vonage’s brand attributes?

It’s been around awhile and has tremendous awareness. Through the time that they’ve existed, they have incredible brand awareness. [Now], it’s “How do we take that and make it mean more?” By taking a tone of voice and attitude that’s a little different, we’re not just providing phone service, we’re providing Internet technology and cloud communications that provide service at more affordable rates. 

How does having a well-known consumer brand help you move into business services?

People have heard of you. By virtue of that, and the fact that many of our competitors on the small business side are startups, that helps us. They know us as quality, and that’s beneficial on the business side. Communications is the lifeblood of a business, and it’s critical to their success. Going with a brand they know, have heard of, and can trust is important to them. They’re not going to put the leads they generate or their customer care in a company they’ve never heard of or can’t trust. 

How do you break into the B2B market?

The first step is to build awareness that Vonage means business. The first job we have is to let them know that we have products and solutions that are appropriate and valuable for businesses. Beyond that, it’s about zeroing in on the specific product functionality and benefit that we bring to businesses. We just have to convince them that the Internet as a means for communication is beneficial to their communications needs. 

How do you set Vonage apart from competitors and overcome inertia for businesses to stay with what they’ve got?

Choosing Vonage comes down to a couple things. First, it’s making sure they understand that we stand for quality, and taking the power of brand in other spaces. Then, I think it’s really about being very specific with the value proposition of what we provide and for what value. When they understand we can provide more functionality less expensively, that’s very compelling to them.

Are you giving up on the consumer market?

The consumer market is really important to us. Products and services we provide to them using the same internet technology are valuable and will continue to be valuable to those markets. This is really about expanding form the core and growing Vonage by opening new markets. 

What has your work on the agency side of your career taught you?

It’s taught me to be consumer centric. In order to be successful, you have to meet consumer needs and you have to make creative connections with people. We want to make sure the products we develop, and the value we deliver are very compelling to consumers and we want to makes sure we find some interesting, creative and distinctive ways to make sure that comes out and distances Vonage form other brands. 

How are Vonage and Monster similar?

Monster and Vonage are more similar than it might appear. Both are technology based companies with both consumer and business applications and I would say the consumer and B2b audiences are critical to each. And both are really about taking Internet technology and applying that to different business to find new ways to do things that are really compelling to consumers.

1 comment about "Q&A: Vonage CMO Ted Gilvar On Move Into Cloud-based Business Services".
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  1. Paul Benjou from The Center for Media Management Strategies, May 11, 2015 at 9:29 a.m.

    Happy to see the Vonage brand expand into cloud services for small businesses. A smart move for a well respected brand. 

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