Now, that’s what I call the good marketing — nothing will make you sign-up for a long-term plan like a good dose of beer. Apparently, two Chinese carriers — China Mobile and China Unicom — are practicing a novel marketing strategy in the east China city of Suqian. According to the BusinessWeek’s article, the two carriers are competing to lure subscribers as though there were “10 competitors fighting it out.” The question is whether can beer-driver marketing sustain and for how long? At this point, with government controlled duopoly - you bet it can! However, China still lacks 3G and the accompanying services that would further drive growth of the overall mobile industry in the country. The problem is that the government waits for the completion of the domestic 3G standard - TD-SCDMA. In the meantime, people of China are stuck with the limited 2G services like ringtones and wallpapers downloads. Anyway, my point is in the “be our customer and get a free beer” marketing, not in the 3G situation in China. If you’re interested in latter, I strongly recommend you to read the mentioned article on BusinessWeek’s site . ---Related Articles at IntoMobile:Free Marketing for Apple and iPhonePoor UIs cost carriers $100 millions a yearChina Mobile subscribers surpass total population of the United StatesNokia wins a 2006 ITSMA Marketing Excellence AwardMobile content discovery on U.S. carriers a disaster