[Fiber-Optic Network Firm Qwest Tones Down Advertising Campaign]
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Qwest Communications International Inc., a start-up company that is building a high-capacity fiber-optic network, has scuttled plans for this week's launch of provocative new ads featuring Bob, a man who inspires loathing because he works for a "big long-distance phone company."
One of the shelved ads would have showed a suicidal Bob, perched atop a tall building, being urged by a policeman to go ahead and jump. Another would have showed an injured Bob in a hospital, under attack by an angry priest. Qwest Chief Executive Officer Joseph Nacchio decided to pull the ads but the firm didn't specify a reason. Other Qwest ads will air as planned, focusing on the company's renegade roots.
Qwest had aimed to strike a chord with consumers who are increasingly confused and annoyed by hard-to-compare rate plans. MCI Communications Corp. offers five-cent-a-minute Sundays and 10-cent-a-minute Saturdays, but the rate jumps to 25 cents a minute on weekdays between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Little LCI International boasts that it charges to the exact second, while competitors round up charges to the next full minute. Market leader AT&T Corp. ballyhoos an all-day 15-cent-a-minute rate, while attacking the alleged shortcomings of MCI's 10-321 service.
But there were risks in Qwest's campaign, which was to carry its own promise of lower rates. Companies say many consumers are tired of hearing phone companies bash each other. AT&T and MCI lately have been toning down their vicious attacks, focusing more on warm-and-fuzzy ads of family members phoning each other. Moreover, the notion of encouraging a potential jumper to commit suicide raises an obvious question of taste, and it could have upset some broadcasters.
Qwest and its ad agency decided to torture Bob in the ads after discovering just how fed up consumers were with long-distance companies. In a focus group, one meek elderly woman turned "really red and angry," said Tom Moudry, chief creative officer of Omnicom Group's Focus Agency in Dallas, which created the ads.
Qwest vows to beat the rates offered by AT&T, MCI and Sprint "forever." The company, which offers customers a rate of 10 cents a minute plus a monthly $4.50 charge, even promises to monitor customers' phone bills every three months and to match any difference if any of the big three companies' bills would have come out lower. Qwest says it can offer lower prices because it is building from scratch a modern network that is more cost-efficient than the aging networks of switches used by the giant rivals.
The aggressive startup, controlled by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz and run by former AT&T Corp. executive Nacchio, is building a broad network for providing its high-powered transmission to Internet service providers and phone companies throughout the U.S. The network will be capable of carrying vast amounts of data using the latest laser and optical-fiber technology. Anschutz's railroad interests allow Qwest to bury its fiber-optic lines along railroad right-of-ways. Qwest formerly was a unit of Southern Pacific Rail Corp., which was acquired by Union Pacific Corp. in 1996. |
