by Tony Gray
posted: 7 May 2021

Have you seen the TV ads by AT&T lately for their 5G service?

One ad has two middle-aged guys squaring off in the store. One identifies himself as a new customer and says he wants the company's best deal. The other guy responds that, as an existing customer, he should get the best deal.

Another ad has Lily, the actress in many AT&T ads, at a whiteboard detailing who gets the best wireless deal. She says existing customers get the best deal. And new customers get the best deal. Basically, everyone gets the best deal.

I'm sorry but if "everyone gets the best deal," there is no deal. A deal, by definition, means someone or some group of people will get a better price or service than the average customer. Companies often reward existing or returning customers with deals, such as Buick giving better lease terms to existing customers of the same product. Or, a company may offer an incentive to new customers to increase their market share like a car company giving an extra $500 rebate to recent college graduates. Or, maybe they give a deal to a certain group like veterans or seniors. It's nice to get a free small coffee or 10 percent off of the purchase price and you appreciate the incentive.

Saying everyone gets the same deal is just another way of saying we are so stupid we will buy into their message that we're all getting a deal and, accordingly, buy their service. I'm sorry, that's not a deal; that's an insult.

I guess I'm still a little upset with them from their broken promise to provide unlimited data for the lifetime of my iPhone. That was such a deal that I plunked down the $1,000 for the new iPhone when they first came out. And it was great until it wasn't. After iPhone starting minting money for Apple, the market for data hogging apps exploded. I think YouTube videos was the straw that broke the camel's back. After a few years, AT&T dialed back on their promise and tried to redefine "unlimited." True, they had to pay me and millions of others a small settlemet for breaking their promise but they probably saved enough money they embraced the concept of redefining commonly accepted words, like deal.

Can't you just see the highly paid promo people in their focus groups thinking, "what if we get people to accept that everyone paying the same price is a deal? That way, we don't have to discount anything by even a penny and they will rush in to take advantage of the 'deal'?"

On their e-commerce site, AT&T says this about phone upgrade deals, "Check out the great phone upgrade deals at AT&T. Our best deals are for everyone. Both new and existing customers get our best smartphone deals."

Oh, AT&T, you are such a different company than when you were part of Ma Bell.