Metro by T-MobileCopied

MetroPCS was T-Mobile's prepaid brand, bought in 2013 and kept at arm's length. On 24 September 2018 that changed. The Verge reported the brand's first big rebrand since the acquisition, dropping the PCS acronym, and Reuters reported that T-Mobile was renaming its prepaid brand Metro by T-Mobile.

T-Mobile's announcement set out the problem it wanted to solve. The prepaid category, it said, suffers from outdated perceptions, and millions of customers overpay larger carriers because they think prepaid means limited coverage, cheap flip phones or bad credit. The new brand came with a new mission: to give value conscious consumers a trade off free wireless experience, using the latest Android and iPhone models on the same network T-Mobile says covers 99 percent of the population. Reuters summarised the aim as removing the perception that prepaid plans offer subpar service.

The logo makes the parent visible. The Verge noted that MetroPCS had kept a fairly separate identity, and that the new logo prominently features By T-Mobile, which the companies hoped would make the budget brand seem synonymous with T-Mobile's coverage and benefits. The brand guidelines describe the mark as the Metro name supported by the by T-Mobile signature, with the T-Mobile logo and magenta reserved for that signature only and banned elsewhere in creative. A reduced m mark is allowed where space is tight, and the primary logo appears in a deep purple version on white.

Perks did much of the persuading. The new unlimited plans at 50 and 60 dollars per line included Google One cloud storage, and the higher tier added Amazon Prime, which T-Mobile said made Metro the only US prepaid brand with Prime. Reuters also carried an analyst's view that blurring the brands could help T-Mobile avoid being forced to sell Metro during review of its 26 billion dollar Sprint deal, making Metro and T-Mobile more of a continuum than two distinct brands.

This is brand architecture as reassurance. Borrowing the parent's name is the quickest way to fight a stigma, and confining magenta to the signature keeps Metro distinct while letting it trade on T-Mobile's credibility. The cost is independence: Metro is now explicitly the cheaper version of something else. For a prepaid brand, though, that is not a bad position to be in.