Invest in Business

A very interesting opinion piece by David Pouge at the New York Times about the cell phone industry. While you may or may not agree with him, and have similar complaints, the second to the last paragraph caught my eye. It said:

"Right now, the cell carriers spend about $6 billion a year on advertising. Why doesn’t it occur to them that they’d attract a heck of a lot more customers by making them happy instead of miserable? By being less greedy and obnoxious? By doing what every other industry does: try to please customers instead of entrap and bilk them?"

I thought that was very interesting. I completely understand the desire to advertise to grow your business. It works, and it makes sense. The hardest thing I've seen in my business experience is sometimes getting the word out to people about what services or products you offer.

However, I think the cell phone industry in the US is engaged in public lobbying, trying desparately to grow business through advertising, and is unbalanced in terms of doing a better job for customers. I would think that even taking 20%, or $1B in aggregate, of their advertising money and using that to improve service, add towers, solve some issues, might greatly enhance the customer experience.

And with today's blogs, word of mouth, and highly connected world, they might gain more business than they do by spending that money on advertising.

You need investment and advertising, but make sure that you spend on both of them with some balance.