Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cingular Rollover Minutes Campaign Sparked Consumer Interest and Reduced Potential Churn - But Not for Long -- New Insights from Compete, Inc. Confirm the Key Role the Internet Plays in Predicting Consumer Shopping Behavior for Wireless Services

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Cingular Rollover Minutes Campaign Sparked Consumer Interest and Reduced Potential Churn - But Not for Long -- New Insights from Compete, Inc. Confirm the Key Role the Internet Plays in Predicting Consumer Shopping Behavior for Wireless Services

BOSTON, Dec 9, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- New insights from Compete, Inc. evaluating wireless subscribers and prospects showed that Cingular's Rollover Minutes promotion sparked substantial consumer interest, stimulated service plan comparison and reduced the likelihood of Cingular customers to switch vendors. But they also indicated that these positive impacts of the campaign for Cingular were short-lived.

Source:

Business Wire

Date:

12/09/2002 14:13

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Free

Document Size:

Short (1 or 2 pages)

Document ID:

FE20021209140000100

Subject(s):

Automotive; Business; Carrier; Communications; Consumer; Consumer Products; Financial Services; Market; Marketing; Media; Online; President; Product Development; Retail; Revenue; Venture Capital; Wireless

Document Type:

Press releases

Cingular Rollover Minutes Campaign Sparked Consumer Interest and Reduced Potential Churn - But Not for Long -- New Insights from Compete, Inc. Confirm the Key Role the Internet Plays in Predicting Consumer Shopping Behavior for Wireless Services

Story Filed: Monday, December 09, 2002 2:13 PM EST

BOSTON, Dec 9, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- New insights from Compete, Inc.
evaluating wireless subscribers and prospects showed that Cingular's Rollover
Minutes promotion sparked substantial consumer interest, stimulated service plan
comparison and reduced the likelihood of Cingular customers to switch vendors.
But they also indicated that these positive impacts of the campaign for Cingular
were short-lived.

Compete analyzed the behavior of consumers researching wireless plans online
across five leading carriers, Verizon, AT&T, Cingular, Sprint PCS and Nextel,
from June to October of 2002. In particular, Compete analyzed the impact of
Cingular's Rollover Minutes campaign on generating new subscriber growth and
curtailing customer churn.

The Compete analysis demonstrated that the Cingular campaign had a pronounced
impact on consumer behavior:

-- At the peak of Cingular's campaign, the other four carriers'
"potential churn" (the percentage of a plan's current
customers who investigate competitive offerings) increased by
a range of 9 to 27 percent, while Cingular's remained level.
-- When Rollover Minutes kicked off in August, Cingular increased
its overall mindshare by an additional 5 percent among all
consumers researching a wireless plan.
-- By October, however, Cingular's own potential churn increased
11 percent, while all four other carriers showed improvements
on this performance metric. Additionally, Cingular's overall
mindshare fell by 23 percent from the peak in August as
response to the Rollover Minutes campaign waned.

"While price and quality of service are always top considerations for consumers
when selecting a wireless carrier, we identified that the Cingular Rollover
Minutes promotion had a positive, albeit short-lived, impact on the battle for
customers," said Stephen DiMarco, Compete's Vice President of Marketing and
Product Development. "Cingular's performance was particularly significant given
the company's decision to raise pricing for all of its plans in mid-August. Such
a move normally would be expected to substantially increase potential churn."

During the five-month period, approximately 40 million consumers visited the
five wireless sites, making Compete's online data a rich source of insight into
consumer behavior. Compete's analysis confirmed that consumer preferences
observed online can be a powerful predictor of customer churn and overall demand
in the wireless market:

-- Across the five wireless carriers, existing online customers
exhibited an average potential churn of 10 percent over the
course of a month, evaluating at least one other competitive
offering.
-- Approximately 40 percent of prospective wireless customers
evaluated at least two competitive offerings prior to
selecting a carrier. Compete uses this measure to gauge the
brand strength of individual carriers. AT&T outperformed other
carriers on this metric with 29 percent of its prospects
considering a competitive product, while Sprint PCS and
Verizon lagged, each with 43 percent.

Wireless industry executives are searching for new ways to reduce customer churn
and increase revenue per subscriber - especially as new subscriber growth wanes.
Consumers' reliance on the Internet to evaluate competitive service offerings
creates new opportunities for wireless carriers to augment their marketing
efforts with a more complete view of consumer behavior that illustrates interest
and intentions across competitive offerings. Acting on these new customer
insights can enable wireless carriers to tailor service plans to improve
up-selling and reduce the likelihood of churn.

About Compete, Inc.

Compete, Inc. focuses its Business Intelligence (BI) services on strategic
business issues including demand forecasting, pricing and promotions, marketing
programs and product optimization. As the first firm to incorporate terabytes of
external online consumer behavior data into its BI analyses, Compete is
pioneering the use of online consumer data to predict offline consumer behavior.
Based on the industry's largest pool of consumer behavior data, representing
over 10 million consumers, Compete provides unprecedented consumer insights that
its clients convert into powerful management tools for increasing market
penetration, lifetime customer revenues and marketing ROI. Compete provides its
Business Intelligence Services to financial services, automotive, media and
communications, and retail and consumer products companies. The company is
venture-backed by leading investors, including Charles River Ventures, St. Paul
Venture Capital, North Hill Ventures and idealab! Compete is on the Web at

www.compete.com.

CONTACT: Compete, Inc.
Michelle Allard McMahon, 617/867-7150
[email-masked]

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KEYWORD: MASSACHUSETTS

INDUSTRY KEYWORD: TELECOMMUNICATIONS

INTERNET

E-COMMERCE

COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS

ADVERTISING/MARKETING

SOURCE:

Compete,

Inc.

Copyright © 2002, Business Wire, all rights reserved.

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From: Evan Platt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 14:37:06 -0800

At 02:00 PM 12/09/2002, you wrote:
> evaluating wireless subscribers and prospects showed that Cingular's 
> Rollover Minutes promotion sparked substantial consumer interest, 
> stimulated service plan comparison and reduced the likelihood of Cingular 
> customers to switch vendors. But they also indicated that these positive 
> impacts of the campaign for Cingular were short-lived.

Didn't Cellular One do this years ago? Or was it GTE (Before the Verizon / 
AT&T takeover of the respective companies)?

Evan