Poor T-Mobile. Their competitors are seizing on the AT&T deal limbo, painting T-Mobile as lying in wait for an uncertain outcome. Why in the world would you want to be a customer of a company like that, they argue?
I watched the below Cricket commercial over the weekend in amusement which took this approach. It positioned the T-Mobile brand as stranded in the desert with vultures circling overhead. Sprint announced this morning their Virgin Mobile Sparah campaign, which creates a fictional tabloid couple, who imitate AT&T and T-Mobile spokespeople, in a less than flattering light.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4qSaH3y21o[/youtube]
Virgin Mobile built a microsite for the campaign and will be running it on cable and network television through the middle of September. “It’s a competitive market and we’re not going to shy away from an opportunity to debate things publicly so that consumers can see both sides of a story,” said Bob Stohrer, vice president of Marketing, Virgin Mobile USA.
T-Mobile might already be seeing some merger angst from potential customers, which these campaigns certainly won’t help. They’ve been losing customers the past few quarters, a 50K net loss in the most recent quarter, particularly with the high value post paid type.
