Eircom's latest radio ad makes me want to puke!

aidan_dunne

I don't know if anyone else has heard Eircom's latest radio ad but it is the most arrogant, self-centred crap I think I've ever heard and just goes to further show how blinkered their views on internet access are.

For those of you who haven't heard the ad it goes something like this. A voiceover comes on and says, "In the 2001 PC Live survey of internet service providers, Eircom Net's subscription based service leads the way with consistant modem speeds, extensive capacity and good quality technical support. So, if you're getting started on the internet or are looking to change your current internet service provider, go with Eircom." Or something like that!

Now, there's a couple of things with this ad that really make me want to chuck up all over the radio or, probably better, all over the head of Eircom's marketing department!

Firstly, I'll readily admit that in the survey Eircom Net's subscription package did come out on top, but only when it came to business customers. In actual fact, the most popular package overall was Esat's No Limits package with 28 per cent of respondents subscribing to the service. Also, the overall message repeated several times in the survey was that unmetered and broadband internet access is what everybody really wants. What do these two things tell us? Very simply, people want flat-rate and broadband internet access in Ireland and the fact that most people who responded to the survey were with No Limits shows that if unmetered access is available, people will go for it. So, how the hell can Eircom ignore these blatantly obvious facts?

Then, as if to slap everybody in the face again, what do they decide to do? Ignore the overall message in the survey, pick out whatever little bit was found to be complementary to Eircom and produce a radio ad promoting it. Now, if they were advertising the Eircom free net access package I would be disgusted enough but they are advertising the f**king subscription package where, on top of the bloody call costs, you also have to pay £120 a year, I believe! The downright cheek of them, I say! Obviously they are trying to pull in the poor, non-technically minded punter who just wants to get on the net but is not too sure of the services available out there and fleece the poor punter even further.

They ignore the overall message in the survey, ignore their customers and what internet users in Ireland have been crying out for for years, pick out whatever they want from a survey and then try to make even more money from it by trying to sell the subscription service. What does this tell us? That Eircom seem to have this amazing tunnel vision or blinkered view and ignore what they want to ignore and take whatever they want to take out of a survey to their own benefit. Once again, I ask the question, WHAT THE F**K ARE EIRCOM SMOKING! They need to open their damn eyes (or pull their heads out of their own ar$es) because this is really pissing me off big time!

Okay, rant over!

yellum

Lies, damned lies and statistics. Its a survey !

dahamsta

It's called FUD Aidan. Get used to it, it's going to get worse.

adam

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by dahamsta
It's called FUD Aidan. Get used to it, it's going to get worse.

adam

Yep, I think that pretty well sums up Eircom's attitude alright, Adam! lol

pete

Isn't this exactly the sort of thing that IrelandOffline should be issuing press releases refuting?

Matfinn

What do you expect to be honest?? This is Eircom we are dealing with, and they will get worse. Eircom smoke nothing funny. They are on the ball, and they know well what people most people want. If they give that to us though, they will end up losing a bit of money for themselves. You see eircom are greedy, and they want every penny they can get their hands on. They ignore us, and they try to blind the consumer who is slightly less technical minded than we are. I am confidant and hopeful however, that they will be nabbed before they can get any worse. They are guilty of mans greatest sin, Greed. I hope who ever is responsible pays dearly.

Matt

Corko

We only need to highlight the prices being paid in the UK & Northern Ireland for flat rate products - If a can of beans cost 10p more in Dublin - there would be war.

We should be hightlighting these price differances. We can a bit technical - we need to be more bread & butter.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

If this the kind of hype shíte they're churning out when they dont even have the product available to the general public, WTF will it be like when do actually have sommit to spout about.

God Help us:eek:

dahamsta

Isn't this exactly the sort of thing that IrelandOffline should be issuing press releases refuting?

Probably pete, but I'm not sure sending out press release after press release will do us any good. Journalists are busy people, they go through hundreds of the bloody things every day. Unless it's exciting or *really* relavant (yes, I know this is relavant to everyone, but try telling them that), they're eventually going to get to the "not *them* again" stage - you know, the boy who cried wolf? Better to, IMHO at least, save our press releases and hit hard with them.

Eircom are in trouble at the moment, no matter what kind of spin they put on it. They have Esat in one of their exchanges. They have NTL rolling out cable Internet (sure, we all know that it's guff for the most part, but Joe Public doesn't). They're going to have to back down on bitstream and they know it. And the same goes for FRIACO.

From our perspective, their response to the first Blackout press release was weak, and the response to the second was more detailed, but weaker still, in that they're still citing "unviability" as the reason, in stark contrast to the comment made by Pat Galvin at our seminar - "I see no reason why flat-rate Internet access shouldn't be available by the end of the year". Even their "unviability" reasoning is weak, because we're not asking them to roll out below cost, and neither is the Regulator.

But there's a lot of uncertainty around at the moment. No matter how negative I've been about the Valencia takeover, it's happening, and we have absolutely no idea what they're going to do. Take the last paragraph in the Phoenix article I've been touting of late - they say that Eircom can't afford a broadband capital expenditure program, but how do we know that they haven't already spent a good whack of the money? How do we know that the equipment isn't already bought, ready to be installed? We don't.

So I reckon we sit back and let Eircom, NTL, Esat et al spout their FUD and parry amongst themselves for a time, while we get on with some work. God knows, we have enough of it.

adam

pete

Originally posted by dahamsta
Isn't this exactly the sort of thing that IrelandOffline should be issuing press releases refuting?

Probably pete, but I'm not sure sending out press release after press release will do us any good. Journalists are busy people, they go through hundreds of the bloody things every day. Unless it's exciting or *really* relavant (yes, I know this is relavant to everyone, but try telling them that), they're eventually going to get to the "not *them* again" stage - you know, the boy who cried wolf? Better to, IMHO at least, save our press releases and hit hard with them.

Surely it's up to Ireland Offline as a pressure group to make journalists interested, to feed them an angle they can use and make them aware of that which they are not aware of.

I'm not for a minute advocating the blanket sending-out of masses of press releases every week to all and sundry because you're right - it will just make people switch off whenever they see an Ireland Offline press release. But at the end of the day the function of public relations is to "build understanding between an organisation and its publics".

In this case, some of your key publics (in particular the anti-eircom element of the media) are missing out on a great story - the apparentlly blatant cherry-picking of survey results for a misleading radio advert.

Give them the rest of the survey, and see what they make of it.

Lemming

Originally posted by pete
In this case, some of your key publics (in particular the anti-eircom element of the media) are missing out on a great story - the apparentlly blatant cherry-picking of survey results for a misleading radio advert.

Give them the rest of the survey, and see what they make of it.

Now there's an interesting idea

dahamsta

Give them the rest of the survey, and see what they make of it.

I'm working on it pete, ok? Just in my own way.

adam

pete

Rock & Roll

pork99

Eircom can't afford a broadband capital expenditure program

Then they need to implement LLU at a competitive rate so that someone else can provide broadband. Also its revenue generator if they are so short of money.

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by pork99
Also its revenue generator if they are so short of money.

Oh Jesus, I nearly pi$$ed myself laughing at that one! Eircom short of money! Thanks pork99 for giving me the best laugh of the day!

pork99

but seriously, aidan_dunne, out-of-work actors in mouse costumes and crappy radio ads are so expensive