John Linton
...and become dishonesty? ...and does anyone care any more if that happens? (or did they ever care?).
I have been looking at the various HSPA offers from the current providers (carriers and carrier resellers) as part of the process of finalising the HSPA 'plans' that Exetel needs to put in place in the not too distant future. Unsurprisingly I was surprised to find just how difficult it was to work out exactly what was being offered and how much it cost. This is fairly sad for someone who has a reasonable IQ and has been around the communications business long enough to be able to grasp the essential elements of service 'construction' and the pricing elements associated with different 'constructions'.
The first thing I noticed was the dishonest ways at least two carriers now treat their "loyal customers" (sorry about using that phrase but it is something I constantly see in my day by day information gathering). Now it's an old but nevertheless truish observation that "the only thing a pioneer gets is an arrow in the back" but it seems this cynical view has reached new heights in communication service marketing.
The latest cynical, and it must be said bordering on the dishonest, scam is, of course, the offer of '12 months service at half price'. "What's wrong with that?" the unthinking person might ask - "seems a great deal?" ....and I suppose it is based on the concept that there's a mug born every minute and that no-one is numerate enough (or interested enough) in today's communication marketplace to get past the marketing scam. Which, I suppose must be true because so many people buy "capped mobile plans" which a moments analysis would show to be a complete rip off - but then the same people who developed those rip offs are now given the task of 'selling' HSPA.
Think about it for a few seconds. Why would a large supplier complicate a price by forcing the potential buyer to divide a number by two - especially a number that usally ends in "99 cents"? "Uh huh"! you say - "that's because the second (and so help me God!) sometimes the THIRD year of the contract will make squillions. Doubtless that's true but if you read the detail of the offer carefully, actually not really carefully because it's very obvious, you will find it's relatively painless to get out of the contract after 12 months.
So, nice try, but no prize.
The answer is far more cynical. The people who offer '12 months at half price' usually (I couldn't find an exception but there may well be one) state the offer is only available to 'new' users (ignore all the other conditions for a moment). They do this because:
1) At '100%' of their new offer prices the offers are completely unsellable
2) At 50% they are competitivish with other suppliers
3) They need to 'meet the market' but don't want to have to offer generally lower prices which they would have to offer to the 'bunnies' who are already customers paying sky high prices for the identical service.
4) By offering a spurious "50% off" for NEW users they can compete for new customers while not having to cut the exhorbitant prices they are charging their old customers.
This theory comes straight out of Marketing Scams For Slimebags 101 (its a mandatory subject in the "Never Give A Sucker An Even Break" MBA. (in this contect MBA doesn't stand for Master Of Business Administration).
As anyone who contemplates buying a communications service these days has undoubtedly already noticed the number of symbols plastered all over the 'head line points' of the marketing blurb have reached plague proportions. I think I commented a while back that to work in "Marketing" you need a special keyboard so that you have got enough symbols to mitigate the lies the head line points are claiming with enough disclaimers (for those who actually read them) to keep you out of jail once the end user finally realises what he/she is really getting/not getting for their money.
So my findings on HSPA pricing is that irrespective of what a reader might infer from the main print of the 'ad' it simply isn't going to turn out that way when they 'get the product home'.
Communications company "marketing' today really does follow the P T Barnum dictum of "It's impossible to underestimate the intelligence of the average buyer."
Personally I think many of the ads I have looked at over the weekend haven't just crossed the line they have have go so far past the line it isn't any longer visible in their 'creator's' rear view mirror.