Apparently all T-Mobile customers are snails. The mobile operator's ad for its ‘Street check' service shows people dragging their homes down the centre of various streets to meet at a point, accompanied by a beautiful, acoustic soundtrack.
A voiceover goes on to explain that the network can provide potential customers with postcode-specific coverage information prior to signing a contract. So we're not snails, but ever-hopeful that we can take good coverage with us wherever we go.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the point of a mobile phone was the ability to connect with people wherever I am - untied by house, office or postcode. By setting up the idea of ‘Street check', T-Mobile is talking about an issue that highlights a weakness, rather than a strength of the network.
The best this ad can hope for is a brief flurry of bored teenage activity centred on frustrating the system by supplying it with the most obscure postcodes. Less positively, it makes those with no time for digital sport feel exposed to a problem they didn't think existed anymore, knocking T-Mobile off the list of brands to take seriously.
And that is where my real issue lies - with the message rather than the execution. In a world of picture-messaging and content delivery, why have we gone back to talking about coverage - isn't this a problem of the past, not the now? Surely it's not the way to achieve the hefty growth targets that I imagine T-Mobile is under pressure to deliver? Then again, maybe I'm a snail and have missed the hip retro-cool irony of talking about coverage again.
I am particularly disappointed with this offering from T-Mobile because ‘Flex' was such a brilliant innovation in a soup of ever-smaller, insignificant offerings and me-too campaigns. It was a genuine response to the confusion of competitor tariff packages and upgrades. This latest ad feels like a retrograde step from a company that had taken some serious strides forward.
The execution looks and sounds great, but it would benefit from having content that moved the debate on, and not at a snail's pace.