Market Morality: Telenor’s silence alienating consumers
Telenor, I am sure Digi is a good service, consumers in Malaysia could probably benefit from it; but you have to appeal to this market through the issues that matter to the consumers, and you have to adopt the values they share; otherwise it doesn’t matter how great your service is, customers will abandon you; as they have been doing for months now.
The #WeAreAllRohingyaNow Campaign is not your enemy. We don’t want to see Telenor fail, as it is failing. But your silence on the Rohingya genocide is starting to look less and less like mere apathy, and more and more like collusion with the bigots and extremists among the government, military, and radical nationalists.
Your recent educational initiative based in monastic schools, excluding the Rohingya, is not the positive PR you hoped it would be; on the contrary, it makes your company appear to be fully aligned with the prejudice and discrimination that is tearing Arakan apart, making day to day life dangerous and miserable for religious minorities like the Rohingya, and undermining even the possibility of reconciliation and peace.
You have to understand that this has a massive impact on the attractiveness of your brand to regional consumers. And it will only get worse the longer you stay silent. Customers have choices, and they are increasingly making their choices on the basis of how companies behave, not just on the quality and cost of the goods and services they provide.
Telenor needs to get ahead of the curve and adapt to this new dynamic in consumer decision-making. It is no longer possible for companies to stay aloof from politics; the market rule of supply and demand is starting to include demand for the moral exercise of corporate power. We want more from you than what you manufacture or provide.