In what could be described as a stroke of marketing genius or the admission of a terrible strategic mistake, Rogers has listened to the people and unveiled a $30 data plan for the 3G iPhone that will give consumers a healthy 6GB if they sign up before Aug. 31.
So, you gotta ask: who was the marketing genius over at Rogers who failed to do their homework before Rogers launched its widely-criticized iPhone plans last week?
Perhaps the plans were concocted by a bunch of number-crunchin’, ARPU lovin’ financial “analysts”, who clearly had little idea of how people really want to use the iPhone.
It’s not like Rogers hasn’t had enough time to examine the iPhone phenomena given it has been more than a year since Apple launched the iPhone. Meanwhile, Canadians have been iPhone-free – not counting the 100,000 Canuck iPhone owners in the grey market.
Quote of the week comes from a Rogers spokeswoman, who said the new plan is based on – wait for it – “customer feedback”. Yeah, I guess 56,953 names on an online petition and a wave of critical blog and media coverage falls into the “customer feedback” category.
Final thought: Why not offer an unlimited plan? Is Rogers worried its paying customers are going download GB after GB of data onto their 3G iPhones, which currently top out at 32GB?
For more, check out Engadget.
For what it’s worth, here’s an interesting chart that iPhone Atlas put together comparing iPhone rates in different countries:
3 Comments
Hard to imagine a small company being so out of touch. I think Rogers has too many ex-bankers working in there.
In the end this might work in their favor. Due to the news coverage, blogs etc. everybody knows that pricing is going to be bad. And now everybody knows that if they want to avoid the bad price they have to sign before August 31 and the phones are scarce. I am sure this will push lots of people to try and buy the phone the day it is offered – even people who signed the petition.
At least Rogers is responding to the market… a little bit. I mean, all they’ve basically added is more bandwidth for the same price. I’m looking at getting the Samsung Instinct with Bell, and it will be $40 a month, for unlimited internet. $20 a month buys a lot of phone… why is there such a “shaft the consumer” mentality with the telcos these days?
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