The TomTom ONE: Satellite Technology in a Box!

“The TomTom ONE is being marketed as an entry-level product for customers who have never owned a GPS unit” TomTom President Jocelyn Vigreux (GPSWorld, 2006)

As stated by Mr Vigreux, a design principal for the TomTom ONE is Mass Market. TomTom have minimised the information content of the design, for this once specialist military tool. In 1996 GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) was released into the civilian population (Humerfelt, 2007) and since then it has been equipped in over 25% of the cars in Europe, 20% in the US (TomTom, 2008).

An example of how TomTom have reduced the information content is by having just one button (the on/off switch) and having everything else controlled by the intuitive touch screen interface (Miles, 2008). This allows the user to operate on instinct rather than on a specific knowledge of how the computer system works; catering for the less technical minded user and thus increasing the number of potential customers.

Appeal

The appeal of the ONE is its modular design - a lightweight, all-in-one navigator with a slim profile and the employment of touch screen technology makes it a desirable product. Furthermore, it’s an independent device and thus does not require any other devices in order for it to work.

The idea of mass marketing is to create a product which appeals to all types of consumer (Project A level, 2009), as the ONE is essentially a replacement for the common map its potential consumer base is huge. Where most electronic products these days will only cater to a certain group of people, PND’s (Portable Navigation Device) transcends demographics and its potential customer is basically anyone with a vehicle – in fact surveys have suggested that of the 250 Million drivers in Europe, 40% express an interest purchasing a PND (What Car?, 2008) (TomTom, 2008).

"Companies that make use of global mass markets sell the same product with similar marketing techniques all around the world" (Project A level, 2009) As drivers the world over all require the knowledge of how to get from place to place the ONE has the ability to be marketed on a global scale – something TomTom have taken full advantage of, in 2007 over 9.6 million PND units were sold worldwide, with little change to the marketing scheme (TomTom, 2008).

Household Name

Evidence of whether mass marketing is working can often be represented with the brand name being used instead of the product name (For example the vacuum cleaner is referred to as a Hoover) and you can argue that TomTom have achieved just that (Consumer Guide Products, 2008) ( IT Reviews, 2008) ( Rowland, 2009).

In recent times fierce competition from other companies has had more effect on the price of the ONE than the design principles (Gale, 2007), but having said that - due to the product being sold in such large quantities and to such a large market, there are factors which affect its price. For example, components can be bought at a cheaper rate due to the amount being ordered. To put this into perspective - you can buy a ONE for a little over £100, about the cost of your average MP3 player or mobile phone (Ebuyer, 2009). It’s a credit to TomTom’s mass market design principal, that you can purchase a PND for around the same price as any common consumer electronic product on the market.

This “Keep It Simle (KISS)”-like principal (YourTomTom, 2007) that TomTom have applied to all of their products actually has a detrimental effect to overall quality. For example if the screen fails, the unit can’t be utilised any other way, it’s the same problem with the GPS functionality - if that fails then the unit is rendered useless. Additionally, there is basically no flexibility for the product in terms of utilising its functions for other purposes - so if you wish to use your ONE for anything other than a PND - your out-of-luck. In comparison, of you were to get the TomTom software on your mobile phone then you would have all the functionality of your mobile with the PND capability to boot (Miles, 2008).

To conclude

So would this lack of flexibility render this as a bad quality product? Well, ultimately no. Although it has effectively no flexibility it is incredibly good at what it does; a box which directs you from A to B, and when you buy a PND that’s really all you’re after.

REFERENCES

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Sigurd Humerfelt. (2007). Brief history of GPS. Available: http://home.online.no/~sigurdhu/GPS_history.htm. Last accessed 03 May 2009.

Stuart Miles. (2008). Can this model stave off competition from mobile phones?. Available: http://www.pocket-lint.com/reviews/review.phtml/3293/TomTom-One-UK-GPS-receiver.phtml. Last accessed 03 May 2009.