A Marketing Challenge

How do you explain to the public in a 30-second TV ad a new multi-layered voice technology. That is the challenge T-Mobile is faced with in their new @home service. This $10 add-on service allows customers to use their T-Mobile wifi embedded cell phones to make calls from home over the internet (VOIP) to anywhere in the U.S. without using up any of their minutes. A router captures the wifi signal from your cell phone or a handset and directs it over your cable internet.
This slightly complex technology is difficult to explain to potential consumers. So the question becomes, do you try to educate the viewer about a complex technology or do you merely peak the consumers interest enough to ask questions? Here is a TV ad that try’s to address that concern.



This ad, although entertaining, does little to describe what the @ home service is. Will the public after seeing this ad call T-Mobile and ask for more information about T-Mobile @home? I seriously doubt it. However, to run an informative ad about this technology and its advantages would probably require more than a 30-second TV ad and most consumers would almost certainly tune it out. So how can T-Mobile get its message out to the uninformed market?