I saw this ad on a highway earlier today and my reaction: why would I switch to a network that has just “96%” coverage.

T mobile ad — example of data puking

…instead of converting a potential buyer, this ad actually made me more nervous. You know why? Its a case of what I like to call “data puking” where you throw bunch of numbers/stats/data at someone hoping that they will take action based off of it. So what would have helped in this ad? It would have been great to see it compared against someone else. Something like: we have the largest coverage compared to xyz. My ATT connection is spotty in downtown areas so if it said something like we have 96% coverage compared to ATT’s 80% then I would have been much more likely to make the switch.

I wrote about this adding benchmark in your analysis here

Takeaway from this blog: don’t throw data points at your customers. Give them the context and guide them through the actions that you want them to take.