Gluing in the Alien Jellyfish

No, this is not some intergalactic sex-change technique, but an observation on the latest customer attraction and retention techniques from 3, a UK mobile network. They are famous for having adverts featuring Japanese cowboys and alien jellyfish; whilst incomprehensible to many, 3 is the fastest growing mobile operator in the UK.

I was interested to see two developments from them. Firstly, and most obviously to their potential customer base, they have a new "WePay" offer that they are advertising - paying customers to receive calls and receive SMS texts. Sharing the charges they receive from other operators for completing calls to subsidise new pay-as-you-go customers is a different way to attract new customers - and the benefits are in call credits, not cash, so they shouldn't suffer in the way that apparently happened in Roumania. There unscruplulous people allegedly advertisied cars and flat-lets at too good to be true prices and gave their mobile numbers...

The other, less well reported account was that they are starting gluing the SIM cards into the phones which they, like other operators, subsidise to attract new customers. This will mean that customers cannot so easily just add an new SIM card from another operator to take advantage of new offers. Not as obvious as gluing diners to seats in a restaurant, and restaurant diners don't usually take the chairs with them to the next restaurant!

3 were also the first UK mobile operator to sell advertising across their network, and have reportedly a strategy of becoming seen as a media business, rather than a telecoms comapny, so we can expect more innovations from them in the future. Paying people to watch adverts on their phones, and charging the advertisers? Competitions for the most popular mobile videos?