is it time for an aggressive marketing campagin?

[ArickInRealLife]

I've never seen T-Mobile do an aggressive marketing campaign for their service.

I know people in glass houses shouldn't through stones... but there IS stuff we can brag about right?

wouldn't it be cool to see in a commercial, where 4 different people with the big four carriers are all at some place, and the "pink" or t-mobile customer all of a sudden doesn't get coverage, but then starts to work on UMA and the commercial could be promoting WIFI CALLING

i mean, its almost making fun of one self but at the same time promoting a great service that no one else offers.

right now, no one takes t-mobile seriously but i think if we through some punches it'll at least generate some publicity for some great features.

i think that changing rate plans as often as t-mobile does is dangerous too.


thoughts?

[jlsparks]

Well, considering that T-Mobile has been in the midst of a global network outage affecting a huge chunk of their customers for over 5 hours, I think I'd focus on network redundancy first

[Artemis68]

T-Mobile does have things to brag about...

GSM (flexability), low costs, no-contract plans (you can bring your own phone), and UMA calling. Oh, and their phones aren't crippled either.

T-Mobile's marketing sucks though. I don't see them actually doing much to promote these new plans...

[berryite]

Originally Posted by uarickj

I've never seen T-Mobile do an aggressive marketing campaign for their service.

LOL. You are so right.

T-Mobile's basic message is: Zeta Jones is one really hot babe. Ain't Michael Douglas lucky?

Advertising is what you remember after the ad is off the air.

Think of great ad campaigns. They hammered the product into your head and made you want to go buy the product.

After you see a T-Mobile commercial, what are you left with? Probably one question: Isn't Zeta-Jones a really attractive woman? Other than that, you really don't remember much and you certainly aren't left with a motiviation to go to a T-Mobile store and buy anything.

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with Michael Douglas' wife. She is indeed hot. But there's no message in her material.

Let's compare another commercial. That stupid lizard with Geico Insurance. The lizard draws you in. He's cute and he's funny. But he also has a message he hammers in to you ... 15 minutes can save you 15% or more on your car insurance. You like the lizard and you remember the message. You might just call Geico to check out car insurance. Certainly you remember the lizard's message.

What was the last thing you remember Zita Jones talking about? And let's be honest, most guys aren't even listening to anything coming out of her mouth. Their attention is focused elsewhere.

T-Mobile is a fantastic company. I use them. I love them. With that said, their marketing and advertising departments should all be fired.

[nzbmaster99]

i've been seeing t-mobile commercials in some very uncommon locations. obviously some big bucks r being spent behind this aggressive campaign behind the EM plans. i think before t-mobile brings customers into their network, they should upgrade and improve their network so that they retain their new customers. again their weakest link is their network itself, and they should spend this money on improving their network. if there is anything left spend it on advertising. new and existing customers should be retained. its not just about getting new people.

[s2kneSs]

berryite: I couldn't agree more. Your right, my attention is indeed drawn to Zeta's sexyness and not what she has to say because there isn't a "push" towards the message, just a constant flow of the message. Get me? Damn now that I think about it, Micheal Douglas is old and Zeta still looks amazing for her age. *sigh*
She needs to talk more in the commercials or talk about what T-Mobile has to offer rather than just say "T-Mobile" at the end.

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[BlkBear]

Commercials are mainly for people that can't think past their nose. They are for all those people that never actually price shop, compare or do any kind of research on what they want vs what they need.

Commercials are frankly for the Magpies of the human race. "Shiny Shiny.. Pretty Pretty" which translates into "Gimmie Gimmie gotta have it!"

Advertisers know this. Companies spend lots of money on ads know this, and the TV, Radio and Print markets also know this. Make it sexy and you get the males, make it cute you get the females, make it a music video and you get the young folks. Make it about saving the whales and you get the greenies. Make it about hard facts and you put people to sleep and your ad is on at 3am with the infomercials, and in the pages of Readers Digest.

Face it the only ads that get people in the doors, are the fast food ads.
The first cell phone carrier that does a fast food tie in, will mop up.

Buy 100 double cheese burgers with fries and a large drink and send in the sales tickets and you get a free unlimited text for a year.

Buy 1000 double cheese burgers with fries and a large drink and send in the sales tickets and you get a free cell phone case.

Buy 10,000 double cheese burgers with fries and a large drink and send in the sales tickets and you get a free cell phone, complete with a fast food theme and paint job, with a 2 year contract.

You will have people lined up out the doors of fast food places.
You will have people begging for sales tickets from the folks that normally toss them. "Yo Dude, can I have that ticket after you pay for that?"

The magpies will make that company #1 over night, and make the magpies fat, but hey they can text each other for free!

[Armando175]

Berryite, all I saw in your post was the name "Zeta Jones". Haha

BlkBear, that's a lot double cheeseburgers. LOL Can you imagine how big America would get?

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[storm9520]

tmo def needs to step up their game. It's all based on image and if tmo plays their cards right, tmo can pull ahead. will they? i doubt it just because vzn is soooooo good at playing dirty

[berryite]

Originally Posted by storm9520

tmo def needs to step up their game. It's all based on image and if tmo plays their cards right, tmo can pull ahead. will
they? i doubt it just because vzn is soooooo good at playing dirty

T-Mobile isn't looking to put Verizon or AT&T in their sights. They'll be happy just knocking Sprint out of 3rd place ... which is a realistic goal.

[s2kneSs]

Originally Posted by berryite

T-Mobile isn't looking to put Verizon or AT&T in their sights. They'll be happy just knocking Sprint out of 3rd place ... which is a realistic goal.

And don't forget about MetroPCS, they are the primary target in this. In just one week of the new plans T-Mobile registered 45,000 new customers and that number has doubled since.

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[berryite]

Originally Posted by s2kneSs

And don't forget about MetroPCS, they are the primary target in this. In just one week of the new plans T-Mobile registered 45,000 new customers and that number has doubled since.

I'm sure that T-Mobile is happy to get any Metro PCS customers who happen to move over. But T-Mobile's target is Sprint. I've been told this by T-Mobile people. It's T-Mobile's goal to push Sprint aside and take the 3rd place position in the US market. That will cool down the pressure they are getting from their parent company and position T-Mobile as a long-term carrier in the USA market.

[RWWackoStu]

I admit that the new ad's are better, but the word of mouth they get from current customers must be worth an equivelant amount of ad dollars. Keep currents happy, word of mouth adds customers. Pair that with a aggressive campaign for new customers, and you have a winning formula!

[nzbmaster99]

Originally Posted by berryite

I'm sure that T-Mobile is happy to get any Metro PCS customers who happen to move over. But T-Mobile's target is Sprint. I've been told this by T-Mobile people. It's T-Mobile's goal to push Sprint aside and take the 3rd place position in the US market. That will cool down the pressure they are getting from their parent company and position T-Mobile as a long-term carrier in the USA market.

funny thing is they don't do any direct comparison to any of the plans offered by sprint. in their commercials, they only compare their plans to Verizon's and att's even though the new plans are most similar to sprint's. sprint gives a lot of incentives to customers including corporate discounts which can lower bills to a max of 25% on their already competitively priced plans. t-mobile still has quite a bit to go in terms of surpassing sprint as the #3 provider of cell phone service in the US.

[berryite]

Originally Posted by nzbmaster99

funny thing is they don't do any direct comparison to any of the plans offered by sprint. in their commercials, they only compare their plans to Verizon's and att's even though the new plans are most similar to sprint's. sprint gives a lot of incentives to customers including corporate discounts which can lower bills to a max of 25% on their already competitively priced plans. t-mobile still has quite a bit to go in terms of surpassing sprint as the #3 provider of cell phone service in the US.

Rest assured that their immediate goals are to take 3rd place from Sprint. As mentioned, I've been told this by T-Mobile staff.

With regard to comparing Verizon and AT&T in their commercials, you are of course right but the reason for that is that their new rate plans look so much better comparing them against the #1 and #2 carriers.

On your point that T-Mobile has a long way to go ... here's the current market share numbers today:

89 million ... #1 - Verizon
82 million ... #2 - AT&T
48 million ... #3 - Sprint
33 million ... #4 - T-Mobile

Getting from 33 million to 48 million? That would be over 15 million new customers. Your comment about "quite a bit to go?" It would certainly seem so.