CDMA hang up looms: Telstra advertising blitz starts Thursday

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 23 April 2008 11:13

Opinion and Analysis

It’s ‘last call’ for the CDMA network, and Telstra wants to make sure no-one can claim they didn’t hear that CDMA will close shortly. Besides many calls, text messages and letters already sent to CDMA customers, a national newspaper advertising blitz will start tomorrow.

A new advertising campaign called “Last Call for CDMA” is set to start on Thursday the 24th of April, four days before the CDMA network closes permanently on Monday, April 28th at midnight.

With newspapers still a prime source of information for millions, Telstra is hoping that any remaining CDMA customers that haven’t opened letters from Telstra, read their SMS messages or answered their phones, and may still somehow be unaware of CDMA’s closure, will be left in no doubt that CDMA’s plug is being pulled.

The ads will appear in “major metropolitan and regional newspapers that will appear from tomorrow (Thursday) and over the ANZAC long weekend”, ensuring no stone is left unturned in Telstra’s efforts to get the message out.

Telstra says they’ve run a two and a half year “multi-faceted communications campaign” warning of the impending closure, and that the advertising blitz was one of the campaign’s “final components”.

Telstra Country Wide Director, Mr Gary Goldsworthy, said that: “Our priority is our customers and we are doing everything possible to ensure that people still using CDMA are fully aware that the network closes on Monday.”

Goldsworthy noted the effort Telstra has gone to in trying to contact every last CDMA customer, saying: “In addition to the advertising and media briefings, we’ve now contacted every individual CDMA customer by letter as well as SMS, in some cases up to 10 times since we first announced the CDMA network closure back in 2005.”

“The vast majority of CDMA customers have now migrated to a new mobile service such as the Telstra Next G network, but there will always be a few instances where a customer needs that final advertising prompt to take action”, said Goldsworthy.

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