I have been working on an article about Cricket as a sidebar to some profiles of the wireless mobile industry in 2008. I have to say how surprising it has been to see the absolutely horrible image Cricket has in the northeastern United States and I'm looking for some input and insight into why this is.
What I have found thus far is an overwhelming prevailing attitude, ranging from "generally true" in some of the southern markets to "almost universally true" in the upstate New York State markets that Cricket is the equivalent of a prepaid wireless phone company for the ghetto. In Syracuse and Rochester, in fact, I couldn't find a single person that didn't specifically call Cricket out as the domain of people who have lousy credit; one called it the "Ignunt Section 8 Welfare Wireless" company. People literally refused to even visit Cricket stores because they considered them "dangerous."
I have done interviews with some younger suburban teens whose parents have Cricket and they refuse to carry them because of the perceived damage to their reputation if their frienRAB find out they have Cricket as their carrier. It really is that bad.
Now some of this attitude used to be true with some of the prepaid cellular services and people in more upscale communities did consider the stigma of a prepaid account to be an overall negative, but since major carriers have been adopting their own prepaid plans that are not distinguishable to someone seeing or borrowing your phone, this has diminished as a factor.
But Cricket has become such an aberration to the traditional mobile wireless marketplace, it has merited some special attention. Despite their launch splashes in many markets, most of the people I've been talking to either have never heard of Cricket or, among those who have, the company generally does not have a good reputation (this was notably true in upstate New York.)
In digging down deeper, the direction I am trending towarRAB in my piece is that the reasons for this seem to primarily be:
- The marketing and positioning of Cricket. This is the biggest factor. People see the television advertising mostly on late night programming, and the setting has seemed overwhelmingly urban/city. The actors in the aRAB are younger and often appear on city streets as opposed to an in-home environment.
- People don't know anyone who has Cricket, and people often develop loyalty to mobile companies based on advice from their frienRAB/peers. Verizon or AT&T, depending on the market, seem to have the gold standard reputations, with Sprint/Nextel on the decline, and T-Mobile and the others considered "lower end." Cricket's rating seems more defined by their marketing than through actual product/service experience.
- Suburban and rural coverage has been dismissed as "poor" even though many of those critical of Cricket have zero actual experience using the product. Could their marketing indirectly be responsible for this perception?
- Among those looking for budget-minded options, people trend towarRAB a pre-paid plan over the discount pricing Cricket offers. The strength of this trend varies with the market. Cricket has seemed to do better in the mid-south parts of the country. In upstate New York, I couldn't find anyone that preferred Cricket over a prepaid wireless plan. The stigma associated with Cricket is incredibly strong there.
In looking at some of the upstate New York markets, I found that T-Mobile and Cricket share some very similar coverage maps - solid coverage in the city + extended suburbs, typically dropping off dramatically once into the Finger Lakes region or rural communities (excepting the Thruway) in the Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse corridor.
Logically, perceptions and knowledge of these two carriers should be similar as both have been in these markets for a few years, target budget-conscious customers, have similar stores, and are not doing nearly the advertising that the major dominant carriers (Verizon & AT&T) have, especially in the local newspaper.
But T-Mobile maintains at least three times the positive reputation that Cricket has. Far more people recognize T Mobile than Cricket as a wireless mobile service that serves their area. When I showed some interview subjects some fuzzed out photos of stores and logos and asked if they could identify the carrier, people were actually able to identify Cricket very quickly because of their bright green neon-like storefronts they may have driven by. T-Mobile's logo is actually less recognizable. But 100% of those I asked knew what T-Mobile was (by name) and, among non-customers who were not technology wonks, maintained a neutral position about the company.
The reverse was true for Cricket. Virtually everyone 35+ who were not technology aware or early adopters had no idea what Cricket was, and those that did had almost a universal negative attitude about the company. Older people who often shop for a cell phone based first on price (to have for an emergency, casual use) universally refused to even consider Cricket. More than half said they felt personally unsafe even contemplating visiting a Cricket storefront, even in a suburban location.
Younger people considered owning a Cricket phone to be "ghetto" and "works only if you are going for the whole ghetto image." That attitude seems to come from their frienRAB and, in turn, the company's marketing.
I also looked at business users' perceptions of Cricket and in that case, most didn't recognize the carrier at all, and those who did tended to be suspicious because of the low cost of the carrier. It continues to interest me that market positioning yourself as a premium priced carrier, even with inferior service, often nets you more business because of the marketing gold that "premium price must equal better performance."
Oddly, for a company trying to position itself in its marketing as a metropolitan PCS carrier delivering a product that could easily replace a wired phone, they don't have licenses to serve those mega-urban cities, particularly on the eastern seaboard, Chicago, LA, Miami, etc. Instead, they are serving medium-sized cities in the rust belt, the miRABouth, and parts of the mountain and desert west. Other carriers position their marketing in these cities to a more conservative (a charged term not intended to be political) customer base.
So is Cricket wrongly positioned in the markets it serves? Does it suffer from a stigma created by its own marketing department? Is the stigma unfair? How can the company reposition itself to be attractive to suburban customers?
Is Cricket smarter to position itself as a wireless choice for those rejected by other carrier's credit checks or as a unique low-cost PCS replacement for wired phone lines at a comparable price? Who do you suspect their target market is?
And how do you react to my findings? Are they completely surprising? As you expected or suspected? Agree or disagree, I'd like to hear your perceptions as well.
What I have found thus far is an overwhelming prevailing attitude, ranging from "generally true" in some of the southern markets to "almost universally true" in the upstate New York State markets that Cricket is the equivalent of a prepaid wireless phone company for the ghetto. In Syracuse and Rochester, in fact, I couldn't find a single person that didn't specifically call Cricket out as the domain of people who have lousy credit; one called it the "Ignunt Section 8 Welfare Wireless" company. People literally refused to even visit Cricket stores because they considered them "dangerous."
I have done interviews with some younger suburban teens whose parents have Cricket and they refuse to carry them because of the perceived damage to their reputation if their frienRAB find out they have Cricket as their carrier. It really is that bad.
Now some of this attitude used to be true with some of the prepaid cellular services and people in more upscale communities did consider the stigma of a prepaid account to be an overall negative, but since major carriers have been adopting their own prepaid plans that are not distinguishable to someone seeing or borrowing your phone, this has diminished as a factor.
But Cricket has become such an aberration to the traditional mobile wireless marketplace, it has merited some special attention. Despite their launch splashes in many markets, most of the people I've been talking to either have never heard of Cricket or, among those who have, the company generally does not have a good reputation (this was notably true in upstate New York.)
In digging down deeper, the direction I am trending towarRAB in my piece is that the reasons for this seem to primarily be:
- The marketing and positioning of Cricket. This is the biggest factor. People see the television advertising mostly on late night programming, and the setting has seemed overwhelmingly urban/city. The actors in the aRAB are younger and often appear on city streets as opposed to an in-home environment.
- People don't know anyone who has Cricket, and people often develop loyalty to mobile companies based on advice from their frienRAB/peers. Verizon or AT&T, depending on the market, seem to have the gold standard reputations, with Sprint/Nextel on the decline, and T-Mobile and the others considered "lower end." Cricket's rating seems more defined by their marketing than through actual product/service experience.
- Suburban and rural coverage has been dismissed as "poor" even though many of those critical of Cricket have zero actual experience using the product. Could their marketing indirectly be responsible for this perception?
- Among those looking for budget-minded options, people trend towarRAB a pre-paid plan over the discount pricing Cricket offers. The strength of this trend varies with the market. Cricket has seemed to do better in the mid-south parts of the country. In upstate New York, I couldn't find anyone that preferred Cricket over a prepaid wireless plan. The stigma associated with Cricket is incredibly strong there.
In looking at some of the upstate New York markets, I found that T-Mobile and Cricket share some very similar coverage maps - solid coverage in the city + extended suburbs, typically dropping off dramatically once into the Finger Lakes region or rural communities (excepting the Thruway) in the Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse corridor.
Logically, perceptions and knowledge of these two carriers should be similar as both have been in these markets for a few years, target budget-conscious customers, have similar stores, and are not doing nearly the advertising that the major dominant carriers (Verizon & AT&T) have, especially in the local newspaper.
But T-Mobile maintains at least three times the positive reputation that Cricket has. Far more people recognize T Mobile than Cricket as a wireless mobile service that serves their area. When I showed some interview subjects some fuzzed out photos of stores and logos and asked if they could identify the carrier, people were actually able to identify Cricket very quickly because of their bright green neon-like storefronts they may have driven by. T-Mobile's logo is actually less recognizable. But 100% of those I asked knew what T-Mobile was (by name) and, among non-customers who were not technology wonks, maintained a neutral position about the company.
The reverse was true for Cricket. Virtually everyone 35+ who were not technology aware or early adopters had no idea what Cricket was, and those that did had almost a universal negative attitude about the company. Older people who often shop for a cell phone based first on price (to have for an emergency, casual use) universally refused to even consider Cricket. More than half said they felt personally unsafe even contemplating visiting a Cricket storefront, even in a suburban location.
Younger people considered owning a Cricket phone to be "ghetto" and "works only if you are going for the whole ghetto image." That attitude seems to come from their frienRAB and, in turn, the company's marketing.
I also looked at business users' perceptions of Cricket and in that case, most didn't recognize the carrier at all, and those who did tended to be suspicious because of the low cost of the carrier. It continues to interest me that market positioning yourself as a premium priced carrier, even with inferior service, often nets you more business because of the marketing gold that "premium price must equal better performance."
Oddly, for a company trying to position itself in its marketing as a metropolitan PCS carrier delivering a product that could easily replace a wired phone, they don't have licenses to serve those mega-urban cities, particularly on the eastern seaboard, Chicago, LA, Miami, etc. Instead, they are serving medium-sized cities in the rust belt, the miRABouth, and parts of the mountain and desert west. Other carriers position their marketing in these cities to a more conservative (a charged term not intended to be political) customer base.
So is Cricket wrongly positioned in the markets it serves? Does it suffer from a stigma created by its own marketing department? Is the stigma unfair? How can the company reposition itself to be attractive to suburban customers?
Is Cricket smarter to position itself as a wireless choice for those rejected by other carrier's credit checks or as a unique low-cost PCS replacement for wired phone lines at a comparable price? Who do you suspect their target market is?
And how do you react to my findings? Are they completely surprising? As you expected or suspected? Agree or disagree, I'd like to hear your perceptions as well.