LIFE IS FOR STEALING!

Or how an unliked telecommunication brand jump’s on other people’s trains for self-promotion. And isn’t even ashamed about it!

To quote our beloved Peter Griffin: you know what really grinds my gears?

It’s a bad enough crime when people steal from others, but when multi-billion corporate brands do so and simply to mislead the public, then we’ve reached the top of the ladder and the highest category of embarrasment.

It all started, when T-Mobile – lacking contents to bring their then new “life is for sharing” slogan to life – dug out the Paul Potts story and produced a commercial that suggested it was T-Mobile, whose communication services gave people in the UK the opportunity to witness his outstanding moment of unexpected glory in the finale of a Britain’s Got Talent series and the former mobile salesman a springboard to an international career as a singer.

The only flaw: the show was aired months before the spot was made and most of the audience the commercial was aimed at saw the show live… on television. Everyone knew, that T-mobile had nothing whatsoever to do with initiating the ocassion and the hype surrounding it in its aftermath. So what was the spot about? Look’ere everybody: we can re-write history and make it ours? Please!

Presumably, research results were so bad that T-Mobile thought to themselves, they would have to take their next storyboards up a notch to convince the consumer that they really have what it takes when it comes to creating live moments for many to share. These guys are ambitious, you know, and most reluctant when it comes to admitting mistakes (something that the T-Mobile and some of history’s geeks such as Dick Nixon have in common).

So they went about finding a phenomenon they could stage live instead of digging up dead and buried happenings and reviving them with a second broadcasting.

But, please don’t expect a corporate whorehouse and mafia syndicate to become creative themselves, don’t believe they had the imagination and perseverance to come up with their own, real life phenomenon or an electrifying, spontaneous “share” happening on their own accord. Instead, they asked their agents, what spectacles, for example successful flashmobs, the trendwatch units and affiliates had observed recently. And, woe behold and credit to the spies, they did come up with some blogger’s darlings, the highly rated and appreciated group Improv Everywhere, who have done some astonishing and very cute projects over the last 18 months or so.

Many of us know full well, that what was to come, T-Mobile’s “Liverpool St. Station” dance mob is just a very blatant plagiarism and rip-off of Improv Everywhere’s “New York Grand Central Freeze” installation. Needless to say, that T-Mobile’s “me too” was planned in the long run, pumped up with cash, documented with countless cameras and in stark contrast to the original, soulless, cold, unspontaneous and fairly boring. It goes without saying that T-Mobile expected its mainstream audience not to be in the know about the idea theft and to go unscathed.

You don’t really think, that Improv Everywhere got any credits from T-Mobile, that they would SHARE, do you? Here they apply double standards.

It goes to show, how desperate this brand must be, to be one of us and somehow take part in the life we are all living… and sharing. O, if only they could share it as well! Seriously, how can you pull off a theft as blatant and obvious as this hoping not to get caught?

The fact remains: T-Mobile is a non-loved brand things aren’t getting better for. It stumbles from one faux-pas to the next, like a deaf, dumb and blind elephant in a pottery shop. And I still believe that Apple could have sold twice as many iPhone’s in Germany, if they hadn’t been sold exclusively via T-Mobile… together with one of their contracts.

Anyway, shame on you!

In my view, T-Mobile should change their colours. From an eye-cancer magenta to a shameful red.

P.S. Anyone up for a bet T-Mobile will do something with Susan Boyle soon?

Yours

Brian B. Ashes