My car’s dead. It is an ex-car. As a result I’ve been scouring the auto websites a lot recently. I’ve been trying to make the best choice about which car to get, with stories of financial belt-tightening on every front page.
One thing I won’t be buying is an SUV – the market for these is down by between 20% or 40% – that’s a heck of a lot!
Along the way, I started thinking about how buying broadband compared to buying a car…
Today I made a decision and bought a used Mini, and if I was to draw a similarity to a car for PlusNet then that would definitely be it!
Here’s why:
- Many car purchasers (speaking from my personal experience) don’t immediately think of a Mini, as they appear quirky or too small, but they’re surprisingly spacious and can accommodate four adults comfortably.
- Everyone who has one raves about them, with either 4- or 5-star ratings everywhere I look.
- Mini is now owned by a bigger company (BMW). This hasn’t made them break the Mini heritage and vision, but instead they have been developed and improved on for the modern world.
- They do things differently to the mass market.
- They’re not for everone but don’t pretend to be – they’re about the fun of driving and confident that what they’re doing is pulling in the right direction.
- I found out that Minis aren’t full of bells and whistles by default, but you add these – for a personalised mini experience.
(They are reassuringly expensive which is different to PlusNet, but maybe the exception to prove the rule).
What do you think? If you compare PlusNet to a car, is it a Mini or another car altogether? I’d love to hear from everyone – current PlusNet customers or community site readers.
Phil Sheard, Emarketing manager @ PlusNet
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/philsheard
(Edit: Mini’s *aren’t* full of bells of whistles by default, that was a typo. Cheers Martyn)
This entry was posted by phil on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 12:20 pm and is tagged with and is posted in the category PlusNet News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Regardless of what car I would equate to plusnet, I have always wanted a new Mini, a Mini S, in black, with white alloys to be exact 
Mine is a Yaris - very reliable, nice and easy to drive, economical so I would like the my Internet experiemce to be like that.............
and most of time it is!
Great, thanks for joining in!
jmd - the Yaris comments sound fair to me, and it's another car with a good reputation. I like the 'easy to drive' idea too - it takes hard work to make things easy.
Ghozer - yes, me too the S is a different beast altogether
PS - I'm eager to hear a range of opinions so if you want to include positives and negatives then that's fine
My wife has a Yaris and I love it. It's small but spacious, nippy yet economic and doesn't depreciate too quick. Tenuous link but I think it's a bit like BBYW Option 1.
[...] the post Is PlusNet a ‘Mini’? and I’d love to hear your comments too - whether you think I’m right or wrong Filed [...]
Back to the point...As a proud mini softtop owner, I think the parallels drawn between PlusNet and Mini are spot on, Phil-bert. MMJ
Best advice you'll ever get when buying a car:
Never buy a french car.
I can say this with a clear conscience since I've had a Megane II for the last few years. Worst car I ever bought. Know lots of folks in similar positions.
Anyway, to continue Phil's analogy, if PN is a Mini - small, well built etc, that must make CPW etc a Renault Megane II.
Bigger, but sadly so cheaply put together that although the pricing looks appealing, the whole lot is a shoddy mess of ill fitting parts.
I could go on, but it'd be more a rant about how rubbish my motor is rather than anything pertinant to the blog. 
PS. Anyone wanna buy a Megane - great motor, well built, fabulous to drive - it could be *your* dream car. LOLs
I have a Mitsubishi Outlander which is based on a new Mitsubishi EVO/Lancer It gives me 42mpg unlike my shogun sport which only gave me 23mpg and the outlander holds 52% value at 3years and its still a 4x4
Not sure what car PN is but it has to have been made in Japan for build quality
A Mondeo Estate Diesel - cheap to buy, low running costs, reliable, carries 4 and the kitchen sink, uncomplicated and it just keeps going...........
Whatever the shell, I'm a big fan of my V6's. Got a 406 4-door atm. I like them kinda cars - they plod along quite happily (and not terribly un-economically) without a care in the world.
However, when you really have to put your foot down you know it'll respond. Kinda like my plus experience - normally just the odd bit of browsing and SSH stuff but when there's something sizeable I gotta download I know it'll give me the full 8mb more often than not.
I've always wanted a V8 though... roll on (or out, depending on how you look at it) ADSL2+!
Here at Plusnet we're always trying to use clever open source things to make our lives easier. Sometimes we write our own and make other people's lives easier too!
We sell broadband, phone, VoIP and more to homes and businesses in the UK. Winner of 9 out of 11 Categories in the 2008 USwitch survey. Winner of "Best Consumer ISP" at 2008 ISPA awards. Voted number 1 in the Broadband Choices 2008 survey.
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