The most successful marketing campaign I ever created promised to save people money.
It did the opposite.
Today, America’s cellphone carriers are using the same marketing trick on YOU.
I knew it was evil when my partner in the boutique marketing agency we ran introduced the campaign idea to our credit union client. It would cost our target market, mainly low-income Latino airline workers, way more than they were currently paying on their car loans.* I designed a comp (a visual of the projected campaign) and my partner presented it. Campaign tagline: “Get lower monthly car payments or get $250 cash!”
“You’ll never have to pay a penny on the campaign promise,” my partner promised our client. “Just extend the timeline of the loan to lower your borrowers’ monthly rates,” my partner explained. “And while it’ll take them longer to pay off their loans, it’s additional interest for you, and a nice little boost in profits,” she assured the CEO.
The client loved the idea and gave the campaign her go-ahead.
The campaign garnered a 58% response rate. Even better, 38% of those who saw any part of the campaign, whether it be email, display posters, info pamphlets, counter cards…etc., converted.
Fast forward 30+ years to last week. I needed a new phone, my old cell so cracked I couldn’t read texts anymore. Hate AT&T which I’d been with since I got my own landline at 14 (way before cellphones). If you’ve ever been with them, you’ll know why I hate AT&T. Decided to go with Verizon after our daughter signed up for $45 a month including unlimited data. Our AT&T bill was $184 monthly for two phones, and mine has NO internet connection on it. Plus, Verizon had a FREE iPhone with sign up.
My husband and I visited Verizon last week to get FREE iPhones, and a cheaper phone plan similar to our daughter’s.
Except the iPhone was NOT actually FREE.
There was tax on the phone for Verizon’s inflated value of $999. And the cheapest plan we could get for just our two ‘FREE’ iPhones was over $79 each monthly, or $158 a month before taxes. And the new iPhones would be ‘LOCKED’ to Verizon, meaning if we wanted to go to another carrier, Verizon makes it impossible to unlock your phone from them if you get it ‘FREE’ through them.
Clearly Verizon, and all the other phone carriers are scamming us with their ‘FREE’ phone offers.
AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile…etc., phone carriers are doing to most of us exactly what my biz partner and I did to the low-income Latino airline workers that belonged to our credit union client. It was evil then.* It’s evil now.
How to Avoid Getting Screwed by your Cellphone Carrier
Our daughter got her $45 monthly rate from Verizon, including taxes, because a week earlier we’d given her the latest iPhone, purchased at an Apple store for her college graduation. We bought it UNLOCKED, so it did not belong to any carrier. She was able to choose the cheapest phone plan with Verizon because she did not have to PAY for their ‘FREE’ [locked] iPhone that she could not take to another carrier if she was unhappy with Verizon.
So, instead of going with Verizon’s ‘FREE’ phone offer, my husband and I went looking for UNLOCKED cellphones. We didn’t want to spend close to double for iPhones, so we tried to find inexpensive Androids. Except we couldn’t find hardly any, except on Amazon, which has destroyed retail, so I don’t shop on it anymore.
Went to Best Buy. The store was vacant of customers and their shelves empty of most products. The salesman suggested we try Amazon.
Who else besides Amazon has the largest selection of phones available? The phone carriers, since (according to the sales rep at Verizon), most everyone gets their cellphones from carriers these days, “because of our great FREE offers!”
Verizon offered us $79 per phone monthly with their ‘FREE’ iPhone, and we had to pay the tax on Verizon’s inflated value for the iPhones which I could get from Apple for a hundred less, with a larger display, and unlocked. Further, Verizon wanted a 3-yr contract at the higher rate to “cover the FREE phone.”
In every possible way, Verizon’s ‘FREE’ iPhone deal is a SCAM, and most everyone is buying into them with any phone carrier these days.
Do you even know how long your contract is with your new ‘FREE’ phone that you cannot take with you to a new carrier? Most people don’t. They blindly, robotically pay their bills.
Let’s bring into this portrait of corporate corruption AUTO-PAY. When I first heard of it, I said to my husband, “What kind of idiot would agree to something like that?” Paying vendors for services automatically through your credit card allows these companies to make their screw-ups YOUR PROBLEM while they just keep billing you. No lights? PG&E will still AUTO-charge you. No cable? Xfinity will still AUTO-charge you. Problem with your bill? They will still charge you, and now it’s on YOU to get them to give you your money back. And good luck with that!
The old way, I simply would not pay them until they cleared up the issue. Not paying them gave them incentive to fix it.
AUTO-PAY also lets these corps raise their rates at will, and so what if your cable bill used to be $140 for the year, and now you’re paying $284 a month. You hardly even notice the slow creep up adding $10 — $30 to your credit card every few months.
My daughter swears by the ‘convenience’ of these financial apps. Well, honey, convenience is hella costly!
So is buying into Verizon’s (or any other phone carriers’) marketing! Like my campaign to the Latino airline workers in the late 1990s, you can bet Verizon’s conversion rates are great from their ‘FREE’ iPhone campaigns with every Apple upgrade.
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*If you’re thinking: “Maybe some people need lower monthly rates and don’t mind paying more in the long run.”
Well, in case you didn’t know, extended debt keeps low-income people low-income for life.
