Seizing on the moment when telecom leader Verizon unveiled its new logo, an old rival, T-Mobile CEO John Legere, launched a bitter attack incorporating the new Verizon logo into a critique of the company.
RCR Wireless reports that Legere has been waging an “ongoing public relations battle against the nation’s number one carrier. Within hours of the new logo’s launch, Legere took to Twitter to ‘check the box’ by lambasting Verizon. He used Verizon’s checkmark theme to list ways that he thinks Verizon overcharges customers.”
Prompting the attack was today’s rollout of the new Verizon logo, seen here:
In announcing the redesign, Verizon said: “The new brand identity takes the best elements of Verizon’s heritage, represented by its colors and the Verizon ‘checkmark,’ and transforms them for a new era. At its most basic level, the new logo is a visual statement that honors our history and reflects an identity that stands for simplicity, honesty and joy in a category rife with confusion, disclaimers and frustration. It’s a cleaner, more human design and the checkmark, the universal symbol for getting things done, uniquely expresses the reliability of Verizon.”
But Legere had a different take. RCR Wireless reports: “Legere listed four Verizon policies that he sees as anti-consumer: data overage penalties, a lack of early upgrade options, no rollover data, and international roaming fees. He sandwiched this list between two subjective bullet points in his caustic tweet, which started and ended with: Screws over customers.”
Legere received a stamp of approval from another competitor in the telecom space — with whom Legere has clashed in the past.
RCR reports: “Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure jumped on Legere’s bandwagon, tweeting that ‘Finally, @JohnLegere wrote something that makes sense.’ The remark may have been an olive branch of sorts, as the CEOs were engaged in a bitter war of words this summer on social media.”
Legere said in today’s tweet: “@VerizonNews’s new checkmark logo CHECKS all the boxes.” The image accompanying the message appears below:
For many of us southpaws, that check mark is going in the wrong direction.
This competition is what more industries need. In the end the consumers benefit.
But in the end, Verizon is Verizon is Verizon. Check!
They all have to cop to some amount of suck in their business practices. I’ve been a customer of every one of these carriers at some point and I think the best deal we’ve had has been with Sprint. To Hell with “rollover” data, I’ve got a family share plan that’s grandfathered back to a time when we had unlimited data. It actually pays to remain a customer over time. Thanks to an account that goes back 10 years, we are always getting bonus discounts, special pricing on equipment, etc. Sprint was the first carrier to realize that the old “customer churn” business plan of offering everything to new customers and ignoring existing customers doesn’t actually work in the long run so they started offering things to current customers nearing the end of their contracts. It has made a huge difference in their customer service ratings. They’re far from perfect but definitely better than the rest.