Geico spent $800 million on advertising but had outdated customer databases, wasted paper sending mail to previous owners and dead people, and didn't lower rates as promised, wasting over $260 per customer. DirecTV couldn't provide the soccer channels wanted after 6 years of broken promises and high prices, wasting over 150 hours calling former customers 156 times. Dish Network also couldn't provide soccer and had hidden fees, incompatible equipment, and continued charging former customers.

1. Stupid brand mistakes {that we all hate}

2. Stupid brand mistakes In 15 Minutes we couldn’t save 15% or more in car insurance After five years of hard selling TV spots, and pushing direct marketing, we made the phone call… They couldn’t lower the rate we already have with State Farm. They kept sending us mail and even more mail, including previous owners and even dead people. In numbers this means: Case Study 1

3. The idea of a “gecko” is to be perceived as green? 5 years = 260 weeks 1 letter per person (family of 4 + 2 dead or previous owners) per week = 1560 Printing costs + Bulk mail Total waste: 22 Kilograms of paper – 48.5 Pounds per single home address. 130 Millions is the amount of homes in America. Let’s say this insurance company targets only 50%, and from 65 million homes, another 50% decides not to pay attention to the direct mail. 32.5 million homes, times 48.5 pounds = 715000000 Kilograms. Imagine 305 ream of paper. That’s how much the lizard waste in paper. Now figure printing costs and bulk mail… Not very green eh? Stupid brand mistakes Case Study 1

4. Even a caveman knows that An advertising BASIC: Even more waste: Geico uses non updated databases Only in hour family Geico spends a dollar a week. More or less. So they wasted on us 5 x 52 x 1= 260$ The Geico advertising budget is 800.000.000$ They could change that non-earth friendly stupid direct marketing campaign that…DOESN’T WORK. Don’t promise what cannot be delivered. Stupid brand mistakes Case Study 1

5. Worst customer service ever, served in a dish Stupid brand mistakes Case Study 2 After six years being loyal customers to Directv and not being able to get what we wanted, we changed to Dishnetwork. We told DirecTV we were not happy with the packages, and options, with the prices and signal issues, we told them we wanted to quit the service. In order to watch a Premiership League Soccer game we needed to subscribe to a sports package and pay more, to specific channels like Setanta Sports, and pay more (we paid even when the channel was absorbed by ESPN), and that was not a guarantee of some pay-per-view no matter the amount of money paid every month. We were paying more money in DirecTV that in the Toyota Corolla… It doesn’t matter how many times we told them that all we wanted from DirecTV was european soccer. After we signed with Dish:

6. Which part of NO you don’t understand? 3 phone calls a week = 156 phone calls in a year. Don’t they have a call log showing that out of 156 the NO was present in 156 phone calls? 156 phone calls = around 24 working hours at a 7$ rate, they expend in us more than 150$ which could have been a discount, and made us happy. And I won’t be writing about it. Time wasted: Since we quit DirecTV we get 3 phone calls a week. Including weekends at intrusive hours. A Sunday at 6 am for instance. We kept telling them we were not interested in going back, and they keep calling as if by the more they bother we will convinced to get back to an awful service. The offered us 300$ to get us back, by paying the fines for the new contract with Dish Network. We asked again about the sports and soccer…and they couldn’t do anything about it. They kept calling, plus doing direct mail as well. Stupid brand mistakes Case Study 2

7. During the final game of the 2010 Soccer World Cup…the signal drop at the most important moment: when Spain was receiving the Cup. *sigh* An advertising BASIC: Even more waste: Signal is awful when weather is awful After a hurricane, the DirecTV response was taking a month or more, and customers needed to pay to get their signal back. If you’re a service provider, provide SERVICE. Don’t rely your brand and image to an “authorized dealer” that won’t be able to deliver according the standards. Don’t ever rely in authorized agents that will also offer Dish Network or Comcast. Don’t offer 150 channels, that will include around 100 selling channels, lame ones like Jewelry Television If your advertising is better than your product, you could be killing your product… Stupid brand mistakes Case Study 2

8. Sorry, the true worst customer service ever, served in a dish from Dish Network Stupid brand mistakes Case Study 3 ..so we changed to Dish Network. Bad idea. Through an authorized dealer that advertises on WSUA AM (radio Caracol in Miami) Dish Network offered us heaven. We should have known that when something sound to good to be true, it’s a big lie. The sold Dish Network as a very advanced technology. False. They said there were no hidden charges. False. They offered free equipment. False. They offered free months of HBB and Showtime, that we didn’t wanted, but they gave it to us, and of course since we forgot to cancel some channels we never order, we were charged. True. After we signed with Dish:

9. So the concept for “HD” is an astronaut thing. We were never offered HD, we were requested to pay to get HD. Guess what. We don’t care about HD as long as we can watch Premiership soccer, which is not in HD We got an HD TV 42” flat screen. The Dish Network equipment was not compatible , delivering an awful image quality. They send a new equipment, which happened to be the same as the previous one. A better one was only for HD customers. HA!: The kept charging us on a credit card that was not the authorized form payment. We needed to stop automatic payments because they kept charging for things we were unaware like a “maintenance” contract. After 2 months of quitting, they were still charging us. Stupid brand mistakes Case Study 2

10. During the final game of the 2010 Soccer World Cup…the signal drop at the most important moment: when Spain was receiving the Cup. *sigh* An advertising BASIC: Even more waste: Signal is awful when weather is awful After a hurricane, the DirecTV response was taking a month or more, and customers needed to pay to get their signal back. If you’re a service provider, provide SERVICE. Don’t rely your brand and image to an “authorized dealer” that won’t be able to deliver according the standards. Don’t ever rely in authorized agents that will also offer Dish Network or Comcast. Don’t offer 150 channels, that will include around 100 selling channels, lame ones like Jewelry Television If your advertising is better than your product, you could be killing your product… Stupid brand mistakes Case Study 2