Rabid reseller: Protection racket

We’re sure there are many of you out there whose offspring have similar problems. 

But here at Rabid, a problem is just a sales opportunity in need of a solution. So we’re working on a new range of products that will be an instant hit with teenagers. Well, that’s not strictly true. Teens don’t care if their smartphones break. They just pester their way to a new one. But these products will certainly be popular with the parents and carers who pay for the broken smartphone replacements.

We readily admit we got the idea from a press release for a new smartphone designed for the mining and defence industries. People who blow things up for a living tend to need tougher phones than the rest of us. But the phones on offer were way too geeky for any cool teen to be seen with, and probably not tough enough anyway. A couple of slabs of Semtex can’t match the destructive power of your average teenager.

Instead, Rabid has been working on super cool cases for existing smartphones. Yeah, we hear you; it’s already been done. But, the Rabid marketing edge is that these cases have been designed by Sk8erboi and his girlfriend Missy. Designed by teens, for teens. They will be cool. Hipster. Awesome! Totally rad! What? They don’t say that any more? Totes down with that. They don’t say that either? Oh. Never mind.

The first prototype wasn’t as impressive as we’d hoped. The dynamic duo just put the smartphone inside an old army ammunition box. The fact that you could run over it with a tank or bulldozer didn’t alter the fact that you couldn’t hear it ringing inside the box. It seems the nephew thought we were trying to compete with the tough smartphone for mining and defence dudes. Shouldn’t have shown him the press release. 

We sorted out that issue and sent them away to do better. The next prototypes were better but not perfect. Tupperware isn’t the answer to every containment problem. Neither is cling-wrap. We pretended not to notice the prophylactics and packing tape offering.

More impressive was the scaled-down Tardis replica smartphone case. But during testing the thing just kept disappearing to another era. We hope it went to the future. We don’t want to think about what could happen to the whole fabric of time if a smartphone turned up during one of Alexander Graham Bell’s demonstrations. Although, some of the early explorers might be grateful, particularly when they figure out the GPS function. That’s unlikely. Most 21st century users still haven’t got that function sorted.

We’re not giving up just yet. We know this is a problem that’s in need of a sales opportunity. We won’t be beaten. What’s that the nephew just said? Rabid should open a smartphone repair division? Told you that boy was smart! 

Gotta go! Phone’s ringing! Mr Bell from Boston wants to know if we’ve lost a phone.