Continuing with its strong “Uncarrier” marketing moves, T-Mobile US CEO John Legere has not only garnered more than 250,000 signatures for a Change.org petition to abolish overages, he’s also sort of rubbing it in the face of competitors AT&T Mobility, Sprint and Verizon Wireless.
Legere said in a blog post that the petition response makes it the “#1 technology petition” of all time on the Internet’s leading petition site.
“Clearly, we’ve struck a chord with Americans who are sick and tired of being bilked by ATT, Verizon and Sprint for more than $1.5 billion in overage penalties this year alone,” he posted.
As for sticking it to the other carriers, Legere and the T-Mobile US marketing team have come up with three options and are letting supporters decide, which is realized via hashtag-based Twitter voting.
The options are: a skyline takeover, skywriting or an overage counter.
Specifically: “I’m a big fan of seeing buildings covered in magenta. So we’d take over the skyline in AT&T, Verizon and Sprint’s home market – and display a massive copy of our petition with the names of all quarter million [plus] signers hung from a building. Vote for this option by tweeting #tmobileskyline.”
On skywriting: “What better way to send a message than doing it right over their headquarters?! We’ll skywrite a message they can’t miss and get the whole thing on video. Hell, I might even ride along in the plane for this one. Vote for this option by tweeting #tmobileskywriting.”
And, finally, the overage counter: “Check your watch. As the seconds tick by the entire country is racking up overages (except T-Mobile customers). We’ll build a live counter that displays the running tally of how much America has spent in overages and put it smack dab in the middle of a competitor’s home market. Vote for this option by tweeting #tmobileoveragecounter.”
While acknowledging the tongue-in-cheek nature of the campaign, Legere said $1.5 billion in overages creates a serious situation for consumers.
“This is about a lot more than having some fun at the carriers’ expense,” he said. “This is about forcing change on an industry that’s become so fat it’s forgotten how to listen to customers. Overages need to go. They’re wrong. Customers hate them. And, they give this industry a bad name. Together, we’re going to make it impossible for the old carriers to ignore this Uncarrier revolution, so take a second to vote, and we’ll take it from there!”
