Life of an Internet Entrepreneur

In case you haven’t heard about it yet, I recently posted about Apple entering the cell phone market with the iPhone. The exclusive wireless provider for the iPhone is Cingular, which wasted no time in debuting it on their main page. This is just the latest attack on Verizon’s marketshare by Cingular.

Back in 2004, when AT&T was trying to move up from 3rd place in the wireless market, Cingular (then 2nd place) bought it up for $41 Billion, making it the largest provider in the country. Cingular also introduced Rollover Minutes, which allowed customers on certain plans to “rollover” unused minutes over to the next month. Verizon, at the time sticking to the “We’re the best, most luxurious, most reliable brand” (notice the THREE messages they were trying to get across), made a stupid mistake and didn’t offer their own version of rollover minutes.

To this day, I admit I am still on a Verizon plan, but it isn’t because I believe they are best (I no longer do). Rather, it is because it is just so hard to get rid of your plan (while saving your number and whole phonebook). The problem with Verizon today is that their current business model relies on people not using all of the minutes on their plans. This forces each of us to assume the role of “postage meter”. I can tell you for a fact who I call most often – #646. No, It’s not my digital friend, but actually a number you call on Verizon’s service to find out how many minutes you have used up so far. So, instead of talking to clients or friends, I find myself calling just to find out how much more I can call. It’s absurd.

Cingular, on the other hand, has made it their focus to brand just one concept – LOYALTY. As a marketer these days, you can’t go wrong these days with loyalty. Everyone wants to have someone be loyal to them, it’s one of the basic needs of man. So let’s look at the difference in how Cingular markets:

- Rollover minutes (makes you feel like they aren’t stealing from you)
- Presence on social networks
- Cute gooey logo
- Emotional commercials (instead of just service feature based commercials)

I think the future is fairly bright for Cingular, while Verizon has a bit of work to do. Verizon has realized its problem and is now focusing on “Business Services”, and branding itself as the #1 choice for business users. Will it work? Tune in to my blog and we’ll explore that another time.

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