I recently sent the following email to David Dyson, Chief Executive Officer of the mobile telephone network Three (or 3):
Dear David Dyson,
I am writing to you regarding Three’s offering of “all-you-can-eat data”.
I believe you have borrowed the term “all-you-can-eat” from the restaurant advertising slogan popularised in 1930s depression-era America. The slogan was used to advertise an offer of an unlimited amount of food (usually in the form of a self-service buffet) for a fixed price.
Unfortunately I think you have made a fundamental error.
The term “all-you-can-eat” is appropriate for restaurants selling an unlimited amount of food for a fixed price, because customers do indeed “eat” the food. However, you are selling an unlimited amount of data for a fixed price and therefore the term “all-you-can-eat” is not appropriate at all (because customers do not eat data).
Not to worry. Your mistake can quite easily be rectified by changing the offer of “all-you-can-eat data” to something along the lines of “all-you-can-use data”.
Making this change would have the added benefit of dissociating your company from the act of overeating, an unhealthy habit leading to obesity, which in turn leads to heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.
I would advise that if you feel inclined to borrow advertising slogans from other industries in future, you first of all check that they make sense in the context of mobile telephony. Please do feel free to run them past me first.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Drummond Harvey
I have received no reply from David Dyson. I expect he is rather embarrassed about his mistake, which is understandable. Hopefully he can learn from it and move on.
Daniel Drummond Harvey 