Reliability, long warranties, future-proofing and self-repair are all key messages in the smartphone brand’s marketing, leaving its ethical business model in the background. Should the big tech companies be worried?
When Fairphone started in 2010, it didn’t have a phone to sell but rather was a project to raise awareness of the exploitative practice of mineral mining by electronics companies in the DR Congo.
It first created a smartphone in 2013 and began to crystalize as a design-led brand focusing on longevity and self-repairability for customers while considering the circular economy to encourage reuse and recycling.
Meanwhile, it asserted that mining had to support local economies rather than armed militias, while factory workers were paid properly as part of a business model based on social values.
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As the years rolled on, Fairphone managed to stick to this plan, although interestingly, founder and designer Bas van Abel thinks the smartphone business is so extractive that he says “fairer” is a more accurate description than “fair.”
Roll on to 2024, and the company is now selling its Fairphone 5. Watch the ad for it, and you’ll see it’s entirely focused on customer benefits. Although some ethics are implicit, the heavier stuff remains out of view for customers, unless they choose to engage with it.
We’ve had to change our approach over the years
Fairphone’s marketing team lead, Verena Kitowski, says: “In the beginning, we were educating the audience by showing them what the problems were while showing that an ethical smartphone business can be successful, but we’ve had to change our approach over the years.
“Customers want a high-quality, reliable phone with good features that serves them for a long time. And they want to feel good about their choice. Practicality is the other main proposition – the fact that they can repair and have the security of a five-year warranty.”
Taking the fear out of repairability
The design of the phone is very much the essence of the brand and informs the way it is packaged and even the instructions it comes with. Kitowski says: “One of the main design principles is that you should be able to open up the back cover and take out the battery to put your sim card in. By showing customers that they can open up the phone easily, it takes away any fear around future repairs.
“It’s the first step and they’ll know through tutorials explained in the packaging that it’s really easy. They’ll always know that they had the battery in their hand before they turned on the phone for the first time.”
The brand’s marketing strategy has seen it communicate different messages to different groups. For those who are interested in digging further into Fariphone’s motivation and beliefs, there is, for example, a 10-minute short film, Behind the Screens, which Fairphone commissioned. It takes viewers from the mines of Kenya to an undisclosed factory sweatshop, exposing the horrors of the industry.
“We’ve started focusing on video content rather than long blog posts to communicate this stuff over time,” adds Kitowski, who also points out that the real enthusiasts can immerse themselves in the company’s impact report if that’s their thing. “It’s an audited report that we publish every year,” she says.
Customer research drives the marketing strategy forward. “We now have a three-year road map of how to be more customer-centric and a full-time customer experience lead who is behind a lot of interviews and surveys.”
The company consists of a core team of 120 staff, incorporating a small in-house creative team including a videographer and graphic designers. Copywriting is done in-house. External agencies are turned to for support, specifically where high production values are required.
Converting customers the biggest challenge
One of Fairphone’s biggest obstacles is converting customers who have handsets made by the likes of Apple and Samsung. “It remains one of the biggest challenges we have, which is why we’re working hard on building trust in everything from customer reviews on Trustpilot to case studies, but we’ve had a lot of success in targeting business customers who place four-digit orders as IT teams know they can just pop a new battery in rather than dealing with data switching and so on.”
As a relatively unknown brand that wants to grow sustainably, Fairphone has its work cut out here, although business customers do have the added bonus of positive brand alignment. “Offering a Fairphone to your staff is a positive business case and an easy way to show you share our values.”
Growth is necessary for Fairphone, which is the market leader in sustainable smartphones having made more inroads than Shift Phones or Teracube. It still only represents a fraction of the overall market, however.
Currently, between 100,000 and 150,000 units are sold a year. “Although we’ve grown market share every year we’ve operated – apart from last year – we’re still a small player operating in a business of scale, which is something that we struggle with.”
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Market penetration is “much slower” than anticipated, says Kitwoski, who hopes that Fairphone will influence big tech companies and adds: “We do see our products being benchmarked a lot more, but our mission is to inspire other companies.”
Fairphone runs on Android and is committed to a fairly long future with software updates guaranteed for the Fairphone 5 until 2031, which Kitowski says makes it distinct. “Within the Android segment, I don’t think there’s another company that supports the software for as long.”
Collaborating with Tesla and others
The company is also open to collaboration, although this would be motivated more by ethical mission than consumer marketing. “We were one of the founding members of the Fair Cobalt Alliance, alongside companies such as Tesla and Glencore, and we’re open to working with others like that through our programs. We’d love a big smartphone brand to join.”
The ultimate aim is that the big phone tech brands pick up the same ideas that Fairphone has been channeling, says Kitowski, who paraphrases founder Bas Van Abel: “He said something along the lines of, ‘If we reach our mission and all other phone brands are fair, we’ll go out of business – but that would be the goal.’”
Earbuds, earphones and more
New product launches are around the corner as the company continues to try to improve its phones and services, but it’s also trying to rethink other products. Last year saw the release of Fairbuds (wireless earbuds) and Fairbuds XL (wireless earphones) designed to be self-repairable after accessing a few screws.
Kitowski says the Fairbud is the only earbud on the market with a replaceable battery, which gives it both a consumer and sustainable advantage over other brands, which all end up in landfill when they fail.
“I would claim that any adult can replace the battery. If you can change the battery on a TV remote or paint your nails, you can do this. It’s very simple.”
For any sector to progress, it’s normally dragged there by a combination of consumer demand and state intervention before corporate change is seen.
EU Right to Repair legislation
All the main smartphone players will be keeping tabs on the EU’s Right to Repair directive, which is slated to come into effect soon following approval by the European Council when it will demand greater compliance from smartphone companies around repairability.
“I’m sure they’re all trying to get around it at the moment. You can only imagine what’s going on in Brussels in terms of lobbying, but the directive is not as strict as we would have liked it to be, as we’ve been complying with this stuff for 10 years. It’s a step in the right direction, though, as they’ll have to rethink everything from their product development to their marketing campaigns.”
It will be interesting to see if the market leaders change their ways and whether Fairphone can achieve further growth or, indeed, put itself out of business if all phone companies can become fairer. It seems any of these outcomes would be favorable to Fairphone.