AT&T, American Idol, and the Jesus Phone

Tonight I was watching American Idol and I must admit that I voted…quite a bit. That says a few things about the ubiquity of American Idol as well as my declining ability to care how cool people think I am (I am getting married in three weeks, who do I need to impress other than my fiancé who got me hooked on “Idol” anyway).

Needless to say, I noticed something quite amazing. As I was furiously texting “Vote” to 5702 to vote for David Archuleta I found that I was only limited by the number of times I could press send on my phone and vote via text message. On the other hand, one of our close friends who has a service agreement with T-Mobile had a hard time connecting to the phone lines and could not vote!

The point of the story is not to complain about voter disenfranchisement, but to talk about how good at marketing AT&T really is. They have mastered the art of creating ridiculously beneficial marketing partnerships. I realized this when my friend who has a service contract with T-Mobile (who has far better service in our area) said, “man, you are so lucky that you have AT&T.”

It got me thinking that even though AT&T may not be known for the best service, they are a force to be reckoned with because they have made their product desireable by aligning it with must-have phones and seeking out amazing sponsorship deals.

Here are 3 cases of how AT&T (including it’s previous incarnation as Cingular) have leveraged some amazing business partnerships to make their cell phone service a winner despite mediocre quality.

American Idol

American Idol is a downright cultural revolution. Anytime where you have almost as many people voting to determine the winner of a reality television show as you do for the American presidency, you have a serious cultural phenomenon on your hands

AT&T has managed to become the enabler of millions of American Tweens who must participate in order to feel like a part of the movement. Many may not understand the significance of it, but I cannot tell you the number of teens I know who are sincerely jealous at the fact that I am on AT&T and can text in my vote rather than having to call in and wait for the line to pick up.

And for anyone who doesn’t understand the attachment that teens have to text messaging, find a local junior high or high school and see how many teenagers are walking around in a text-message induced stupor, not bothering to even look up see where they are going.

AT&T has used its relationship with American Idol to be viewed on a very personal level as a brand that enables teens to more actively take part in something they care about. Even if it is something as seemingly silly as being able to vote more for their favorite American Idol contestant via text message.

the Razr

When Motorola needed to cut into Nokia’s market share they tried a novel approach to marketing. They determined what the market wanted and then created technology to fit around it. At the time, consumers wanted to get away from the bland phones being offered up and move towards phones that made a statement about them.

Motorola made the Razr, which was the first phone to be viewed as a fashion statement rather than a communications device. Everyone HAD to have them and the only carrier that you could get them through was…you guessed, it, Cingular.

Cingular, now AT&T, did not need to have the best service when they had the coolest phone that everyone had to have. Once the ability to port numbers across carriers came about, people had no problems switching over to AT&T to get a Razr!

The iPhone…aka, the Jesus Phone

When the success of the Razr wore off and it became cliché to own one, it was no problem for AT&T to ditch the Razr as its flagship phone and copy its success with the next must-have phone.

When Apple came out with the iPhone, hordes of Apple devotees had to have it. Guess who came up with the exclusive rights to sell the phone? That is right, AT&T. Once again, AT&T rode Apple’s coat tails right to financial heaven.

Who needs to have the greatest data network when you have the iPhone…definitely not AT&T. They have arguably the worst data plans of all of the major carriers, yet millions are switching to them so that they can own an iPhone.

What is the lesson in all of this? The lesson is that in marketing there are so many better ways to differentiate yourself than on quality or price. Fools assume that those are the only two ways to compete, and when you fall into that trap you get pigeon-holed into price wars and quality hassles.

I am not saying that you should not make quality products, but high quality at a fair price are expected in today’s market place. Why would you differentiate yourself on an issue that is considered the bare minimum of things that must be done to even enter the game?

Smart marketers like AT&T look for ways to change the game to fit their strengths. In a world where your wireless service is almost a commodity, AT&T has leveraged some pretty strong marketing partnerships to become a de facto fashion icon. Who cares if you drop a call or two, as long as you have a phone that makes a strong statement about you and you can say that you voted for David Archuleta 200 times while your friend on another network was only able to get through 10 times.

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