One day I decided to do the new. I decided to go the Docomo way.

As a person who loves to make spontaneous/stupid decisions (and regret them later), it wasn’t a hard decision. I immediately fell in love with the Docomo ads. I first saw them on HUGE billboards on my way home from the airport on the last day of July, returning to Bangalore after a summer of 3 months.

The typeface was young, bold, unusual and simple. Simplicity Japanese style (actually more Swiss style when it comes to the sole use of type). And playful, of course! The C and the O of the DOCO even look like Pacman eating the O! The colours were refreshing – young and complimentary. The fact that the colour combinations kept changing  – from oranges and yellows to blues and greens – and still managed to look sooo good while keeping the brand identity intact was a testament to Docomo’s tagline – do the new!

The san serifs, the web 2.0 feel, the sheer audicity of the huge ‘O’ with the brilliant copy written within it! “Why do the old when you can do the new?” Oh, why, oh, why??? I may not know much, but I sure as hell know that when I see these ads, I really want to do the new!

Lol, Docomo dares you to another level. Move over, staid and sentimental Airtel, here comes the competition! Gone are the days of soppy relationships between Vidya Balan n Rang de Basanti guy! No more AR Rahman music and parent-child connecting the stars. We’re young and we know it! We’re not in for the relationship, we’re in it for the results. And Vodafone – the Zoozoos and the Pug were cute n funny – but you HAVE to get over them at some point.

So I did the new. I got the sim. With much difficulty I may add. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one enticed by the brilliant advertising and the wonderful scheme of 1 paise per second. Apparently all sims within Karnataka were over in a week. Tata promised that sims would be available the week after, but that didn’t happen. It was only a week later that I actually managed to get my sim.

And I’m LOVING every minute of it. From opening the pretty little boxlet which had the sim – with the cute and simple intros to Docomo!  To the brilliant brilliant scheme.

About the scheme – initially, I was like what the hell – nothing that great! 1 paise per second = 60 paise per minute = more than my reliance scheme of 50 paise per min local calls. But then I realised most of my local calls last not more than 15 seconds = 15 paise = 35 paise saving! AND THEN I learnt all national calls were all 1 paise/second. Then I was like WoAhhhh. 60p/min = way cheaper than my reliance 1rs/min!

On the negative side – the customer service is pretty bad. You can tell they’re just starting up. The CSRs don’t know anything. And the wait to speak to one of them is realllllly reallllly long.

On the positive – you get to hear a brilliant accapella singing ‘Do co mo’ while waiting! :)\

Do the new! Me re(do)comend!

UPDATE on Oct 3, 09: Couple of months into buying the sim – how has my experience been so far? Well, quite honestly the network sucks! My friend’s find it impossible to get thru to me – they complain of hearing a beep beep beep sound.. n then nothing happens. I can’t get thru to them at all. Docomo has the audacity of saying on occassion that ‘the number you’re trying to call doesn’t exist!’  And the most frustrating bit is that the signal pretty much always shows full range – when it clearly isn’t true.

I thought this was because I was living in sub-urban Bangalore (Yelahanka) – but the same thing happens to me when I’m in the heart of the city. In front of Koshy’s on Church Street! And its not only me – a friend I encouraged to ‘do the new’  has the same problem.

Sucks! Too good to be true. Regretting hasty decisions :/

Docomo please please please fix your network!