Ryan Reynolds and his recent investment, telecommunications company Mint Mobile, shook things up this Super Bowl by opting not to buy any airtime.
The trailblazing brand was launched by parent company Ultra Mobile in 2017 and has worked its way into the spotlight with their shockingly low rates and help from Reynolds and his accompanying 50 million Twitter and Instagram followers.
“I love ads. Except when they cost 5 million dollars for 30 seconds of airtime. Mint Mobile is premium wireless for an almost suspiciously great price. So instead of creating a pricey ad trying to convince people to try Mint, we’re going to let them try it for free,” Reynolds said in an online ad.
While most companies spend months preparing their Super Bowl ads and spend millions upon millions of dollars on celebrity endorsement deals, Reynolds and Mint used the money allotted for a Super Bowl ad to offer a free three-month trial of their services to anyone who signed up during the game.
Despite being absent from the Super Bowl scene, the wireless company did choose to purchase a full-page ad in The New York Times. Along with the cost of the ad, Reynolds boasted that Mint could afford to give away over 300,000 months of free service with the money it would have cost to produce the commercial.
It’s plain to see that it wasn’t just the newspaper ad that made the promotion successful; the role of Reynolds in their press and public relations seem to be the real reason they have seen such a rise in notoriety.
So, what’s the catch?
The deal appears to be as genuine as Reynolds himself and is on par with the company’s record for offering affordable service. There aren’t many other companies that offer a straight-forward, $15 per month plan for new customers. Keep in mind, though, the Super Bowl promotion was limited to one line per household and was only offered to new customers who signed up during the game, a promotion that eventually extended to midnight.
