T-Mobile launches "myFaves" service, new branding

by Chris Ziegler, posted Oct 2nd 2006 at 2:51AM

T-Mobile is dead, long live T-Mobile. October 2006 is looking to mark some major changes for the States' fourth-largest carrier, dropping their corporate branding in favor of what you see above -- a decidedly... well, bubblier font, along with a fresh slogan, "Stick Together." The color scheme (pink, and lots of it) carries over, but the spokesperson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, does not. On a related note T-Mobile is taking the opportunity to launch their myFaves service (reminiscent of Alltel's My Circle) which lets customers place calls airtime-free to five folks of their choice, regardless of carrier. It seems a little sketch that they're restricting the use of myFaves to certain handsets with special firmware -- but with plans starting at $40, we suspect plenty of folks will be willing to pick up new hardware to get in on the action.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: T-Mobile, Misc

Tags: advertising, branding, catherine zeta jones, CatherineZetaJones, myfaves, t-mobile

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Max Si @ Oct 2nd 2006 1:16AM

You would think that for a $300 phone, the sidekick, they would give it the same feature there giving some $20 phones now, but the sidekick 3 basicly sucks, and I wish I had a BB Pearl insted of it...anyone up for a trade? :-D

Neutral

RocStar @ Oct 2nd 2006 1:20AM

Has anyone noticed they now say their #1 for fewest dropped calls when you go to t-mobile.com/company? I have TMo but work for Cingular, lol, don't know about you guys but I see a storm a brewin` over the next couple of weeks.

Neutral

Carlos @ Oct 2nd 2006 1:48AM

Wow, the new site design/branding is horrible. I mean, they should have at least redesigned their logo to match. It has a whole old corporate feel, but then the rest is all bubble-tastic and doesn't work at all.

Nice slogan though.

Neutral

roy @ Oct 2nd 2006 2:15AM

When will T-Mobile get the new Razor KRZR K1 phone? If they don't get it in couple of months I am going to switch to a different carrier! Help anyone?

Neutral

ahigee @ Oct 2nd 2006 2:49AM

Minimum $40 plan to have 5 people to call for free=Tmobile

Minimum $50 plan to have 10 people to call for free=Alltel

This whole change looks like the Alltel makeover except without a new symbol. Only difference with the myfaves/mycircle is that Tmobile's seems more software based. As the picture shows, it looks like you chose one of the 5 from a list on the main screen. I guess it depends on your phone as to how it will look.

Neutral

Jason @ Oct 2nd 2006 3:49AM

@ Carlos

They can't redesign their logo, it is their corporate logo, which is in German, and they are not changing. The font is kinda childish for "stick together."
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@ ahigee

True, but I bet that T-Mo will have better success with Myfave than Alltel. Guess why? Nobody has even heard of Alltel wireless, at least here in the NW.
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I love T-Mo and their CustomServ, but why the hell can they not get some better phones, or phones that are less than 2 years old. I still have my SE 610 from 3 years ago, and I want to get a new phone, but there is nothing to choose from.

I think that they don't need to change any slogans or fire Mrs Jones, but get some nice phones that the competition doesn't have, That is all they need, other than that, T-Mo is the coolest carrier from them all.

Neutral

Tim in Augusta @ Oct 2nd 2006 7:49AM

It is interesting to note that the family plans for myFaves leaves off free mobile-to-mobile since, I suppose, you will be calling your 5 faves intead of your family.

Insteead of trying to emulate Alltel (is Alltel even a real challenger?), perhaps they should look at trying to keep customers they already have. I've been with Powertel/VoiceStream/T-Mobile since 1999 and the best deal they will give me on a new handset is a lousy $50 off if I sign on for 2 more years - and, as Jason @ 3:44 mentions, none of their phones are particularly interesting new models. I helped my mom activate her new RAZR from Verizon yesterday - one she got _free_ for renewing her contract at the end of her first 2-year contract - the entire time I was thinking, "And I'm staying with T-Mobile, why?" (My answer to that "why?" is usually that T-mobile has cheaper monthly charges so it is time to do a good comparison of rates.)

Of course, I don't have to spend 33 minutes on the phone with T-mobile to activate a new GSM phone as it takes less than 3 minutes to swap SIM's. (I've been assured that Verizon doesn't usually take more than like 5 minutes to activate phones, though, so I guess I just got lucky yesterday.)

Neutral

Viakenny @ Oct 2nd 2006 9:23AM

is that the new official font for T-Mobile USA?
or just a third font, with Deutsche Telekom corporate TeleAntiqua and TeleGrotesk?
I see the new font (VAG Rounded) and TeleGrotesk on T-Mobile.com

but which slogan is better: "simply closer" (Europe) or "stick together" (USA)? I'll "stick" to the US slogan.

Neutral

David F @ Oct 2nd 2006 9:40AM

I'll just keep my Verizon Wireless service: I have free mob2mob (to 55M people), 450 min, and free n&w for the same 39.99/mo...

Neutral

Big R. @ Oct 2nd 2006 12:29PM

They seriously should have re-thought their color scheme. The hot pink and white has been hidious from the beginning. This would've been a great time to change it. Oh well, too bad for T-MO, still the worst carrier in the US in every way.

Neutral

chudy @ Oct 2nd 2006 1:06PM

..."still the worst carrier in the US in every way."
hey Big R. got any way to back up your claims?

i've been happy with T-Mobile since the Omnipoint days. Admittedly they do have some suburbian black holes but in metro areas they're great.

their voice plans and data plans are very competitive too. you cant beat 1000 minutes + free n&w + m2m for 39,99!! and their data plans are very cheap too compared to cingular and verizon.

Neutral

chudy @ Oct 2nd 2006 1:07PM

...and yes the hot pink thems ia absolutely hideous..

Neutral

Viakenny @ Oct 2nd 2006 2:08PM

I like the hot pink.

BTW, that's the corporate color for all of Deutsche Telekom (T-Com, T-Mobile, T-Online, T-Systems and many other T-Stuff).

Neutral

roamer1 @ Oct 2nd 2006 6:24PM

IMO, the phone "requirement" (which has no technical basis whatsoever, as zero-rating MyFaves calls is still done in the billing system, not at the handset level, based on several reports from people who have moved their SIM from a MyFaves phone to a non-MyFaves phone) will be MyFaves' undoing. As it stands now, they are running a very strong risk of alienating a lot of their high-ARPU data customers, and Sidekick (no MyFaves on the SK3 -- what ARE they thinking???) and Palm users in particular, and are confusing and frustrating even people with standard phones who have to buy new phones for a *voice plan* -- something I've never heard of any carrier forcing people to do except in certain acquisition situations (read: Cingular blue) and when carriers change from one air interface to another. I like the idea of the interface, but it shouldn't be required!

As for the new slogan and font: like the abundance of pink, it does make them stand out somewhat from stodgier carriers like VZW. Now all we need is a carrier that likes green... :p

Neutral

Jon @ Oct 3rd 2006 5:31AM

roamer1:

www.revol.us

There's your green. I walked past a Revol store here in OH, and it looked absolutely hideous. I'm not sure how these people are getting any customers. :)

Neutral

wifiguy @ Oct 11th 2006 4:44PM

There are a lot of good comments out here. Let me add my 2 cents. T-Mobile's offering is cool because you can place and receive calls from any 5 numbers that you want...regardless of carrier (wireless or landline). The stick together theme comes in as 2 out of every 3 calls wireless users place are to the same 5 numbers. The user interface (wap, online, handset and through care) is very robust. The ability to put faces (pictures) or icons of your 'MyFave' is cool too - and the price is awesome. The I can call 55 million people in my network is great doesn't help if I wat to call my mom or vice versa and she is dialing from a landline. You can still have the M2M option this plan I believe. The Stick Together theme is show casing everyday folks - not the celebs that most of us are getting tired of seeing on reality shows. I like it! (can you tell)?

The new handset requirement is my only con as I recently purchased the MDA. Ugh!

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