Sprint, the nation’s least favorite cellular service provider, paid for a new trending hashtag on twitter: #TheSwitchIsReal. But is it? Their sales pitch isn’t that they have a lot to offer you as a customer, but that they’re almost as good as Verizon—the nation’s second choice in carriers.
Just lower your standards a little bit! You’ll barely notice!
As you can see in Sprint’s latest Twitter ad (to the right), they’re not only claiming to be just 1% behind Verizon but that they discovered this statistic through Nielsen data. Nielsen has a bad track record with collecting accurate data for their primary product: TV rating measurement. So aside from the absurdity of claiming they’re almost as good as #2 to try and gain customers, they’re backing that claim up with data from a company that historically sucks at mining accurate data.
Sprint, let’s be honest: you were never anyone’s favorite carrier. But when did you become so desperate? This is just sad.
Sprint used to have a decent offering, but their service plans have gotten so convoluted that it’s hard to tell what you’re even getting anymore. T-Mobile may not have some of the advantages of AT&T and Verizon, but they at least fill in their shortcomings by charging less and offering additional features other carriers won’t. Sprint just wants you to lower your standards. It’s the advertising equivalent of “give the ugly guy a chance.” Unfortunately, that argument can only work when you have literally any other advantage to offer.