Changes are afoot at Consumer Cellular, the MVNO that caters to the senior crowd.
Consumer Cellular was founded in 1995 by two friends who had worked for McCaw Communications. Eventually, the company formed a partnership with AARP and put a stake in the ground to focus on the 50+ demographic.
The company changed hands in 2020 with GTCR taking a controlling stake. Now headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company remains committed to the over 50 segment. Last year, Consumer Cellular announced actor and producer Ted Danson as its spokesperson. Danson, 75, was in the 1980s sitcom “Cheers” and more recently, shows like “The Good Place” and “Mr. Mayor.”
According to a Best MVNO report, no new TV ads featuring Danson had appeared since September 2022 and in April, his face was briefly removed from the MVNO’s website. However, he’s in the latest “Freedom Calls” commercial.
This week, Consumer Cellular released a new spot featuring Danson. The new campaign sets out to challenge the negative stereotypes about aging in the media and celebrates the “freedom and joy” of this phase of life, a Consumer Cellular spokesperson told Fierce. Additional campaign spots are planned for later this month.
More stores opening
In terms of retail distribution, the company also started expanding beyond the big-box retailers like Target to include its own stores. The company opened two stores in The Villages retirement community in Florida last year.
Today, the company has five stores open in Florida and Arizona with plans to open at least another six stores in new states including Texas, Nevada and Missouri, the spokesperson said.
Wave7 Research said that based on checks of the carrier's store locator, the Arizona stores are located in Scottsdale, Surprise and Mesa. Based on job postings, Wave7 expects Consumer Cellular to open up to 11 new stores, in addition to the five already open.
Shaking things up
Consumer Cellular has shown a lot of energy and initiative since the purchase by GTCR, said Wave7 principal Jeff Moore. “They’ve done a lot of things differently,” he said.
In addition to the campaign with Danson, it’s adding more Walmart stores to its distribution and appears to have expanded its customer care capacity. “They seem to be very active post-acquisition,” he said.
Consumer Cellular has more than 4 million customers, “and they understand better than any other MVNO about differentiation,” he added. “They’ve chosen a niche in the market and they’re going after it in all ways imaginable.”
Fierce previously reported that Consumer Cellular was using the networks of AT&T and T-Mobile. But Best MVNO said it has heard from some readers that Consumer Cellular has dropped T-Mobile as a network partner, making it exclusively an MVNO of AT&T.
Consumer Cellular would not comment to Fierce on its network partner.