T-Mobile USA Inc. said it plans to launch a new advertising campaign highlighting the carrier’s prepaid service offering T-Mobile To Go. The carrier noted that it recently introduced lower per-minute rates for its prepaid service last month, as well as provided customers with a broader selection of handsets.
The advertisements, which were conceived by Publicis West, tout T-Mobile USA’s simplified prepaid offering with the tagline “T-Mobile To Go. Straight Up Prepaid.” The television ads make references to other operators charging customers connection fees and daily charges for being prepaid customers.
“Our national advertising campaign helps to reinforce the T-Mobile To Go service as being genuine and ‘straight up,’ offering consumers the best value in prepaid wireless with no annual contracts and no hidden fees,” said Jim Goodwin, vice president of integrated marketing for T-Mobile USA.
T-Mobile USA reported earlier this year that the percentage of prepaid subscribers on the carrier’s network increased from 10.8 percent during the third quarter of 2004 to 11.4 percent during the final three months of last year.
Despite claims that prepaid customers typically spend less per month and have a higher propensity to churn when compared with postpaid subscribers, analysts have noted that the prepaid market is one of the few remaining growth opportunities for the wireless industry.
Several wireless operators have recently updated their prepaid offerings in an attempt to make their service more attractive and simple to understand. The increasing number of mobile virtual network operators, which often have a lower cost structure than traditional wireless operators, are also heavily targeting the prepaid market.
