Android Phone Tips
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| Android Phone Tips |
Sprint's prepaid arm, Virgin Mobile, took aim at T-Mobile spokeswoman "Carly" and an AT&T caricature in its latest advertisement. Carly interjects. Basically Virgin Mobile, channeling Sprint, is attacking AT&T and T-Mobile's recent decisions to pull the plug on unlimited data plans and double its obligatory contracts on all smartphones to two years.
"T-Mobile has anointed itself as the value leader in wireless," Bob Stohrer, vice president of marketing for Virgin Mobile USA, said in a statement. "Yet they've conveniently left Virgin Mobile out of their comparison set, so we're crashing their party. No matter how you dress their plans up, they're no match for Virgin Mobile's no-contract, Unlimited Data offering at $35/month coupled with Android-powered phones like the new Motorola Triumph."
Lastly, Virgin's ad also attacks the one glimmer of promise in T-Mobile's otherwise disappointing second quarter earnings report: prepaid. T-Mobile director of communications, Hernan Daguerre, responded to the ad in a statement, "Virgin's new ad proves that our successful Monthly4G no annual contract plans are putting pressure on their business.
The battle over prepaid between T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel's Virgin Mobile just got a little uglier. The advertisement underscores the growing importance of the prepaid wireless business for the national carriers, which traditionally generated a bulk of their revenue with contract customers. Both Sprint and T-Mobile reported strong prepaid numbers in the second quarter.
Sprint added 674,000 net new prepaid subscribers--with Virgin Mobile a contributor to that total, while T-Mobile added 231,000 net customers despite another ugly quarter for postpaid losses. The prepaid business, which generally attracts lower-income and credit customers, has been using smartphones to keep growth going. Dolcourt also noted that the Motorola Triumph was a real winner among options for prepaid customers.
Virgin offers a $55-a-month plan with unlimited calling, data messaging, and Internet access. T-Mobile offers a similar plan for $50 a month. Both throttle excessive data users. Virgin is attempting to halt T-Mobile's momentum. In a new set of television commercials, Virgin Mobile's "Sparah," a manufactured celebrity couple intended to attract tabloid coverage, encounters a T-Mobile lookalike in the company's signature all-white setting, calling the place "boring."
After an AT&T representative appears (a balding man in an ill-fitting suit), Sparah asserts that T-Mobile's customers could switch to Virgin Mobile, while the setting shifts to a nightclub party. After preaching a value message about Virgin Mobile and Android phones, the scene cuts to the faux T-Mobile spokeswoman being aggressively hit on by the AT&T representative and saying, "I'm contractually obligated to enjoy this."
"There's clearly a blurring between what was once a hard line between post- and pre-paid [phone service]," Bob Stohrer, vice president of marketing for Virgin Mobile USA, tells Marketing Daily. Ironically, the T-Mobile commercials were initially created as a subtle jab at AT&T and its successful iPhone.
Virgin Mobile's Sparah couple was introduced in May as a way for Virgin Mobile to tap into its target's seemingly insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip. The new commercials featuring Sparah and the fake T-Mobile spokeswoman will run on cable and broadcast networks through the middle of September.
By. Android Phone Tips
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