T-Mobile ditched Ariana Grande on the roadside — the driver needed data for maps

Launch T-Mobile ONE, the unlimited-everything plan, to Americans still worrying about limited data buckets and overages every month.

A pop star hitchhiker dumped on the kerb because navigation beats streaming — the absurdity of rationing data under limited plans.

The spot debuted during premieres of Supergirl (CW) and Timeless (NBC) in October 2016 as part of the T-Mobile ONE campaign, with the message backed by the fastest LTE network reaching nearly 311 million Americans.

No results reported. The spot literalised data anxiety: having to choose between entertainment and getting home.

In October 2016, T-Mobile debuted a new T-Mobile ONE spot starring Ariana Grande, created by Publicis Seattle, airing during the premieres of Supergirl on The CW and Timeless on NBC.

The comical premise: millions of Americans on limited data bucket plans make painful trade-offs every month, and in the spot that trade-off ends with Ariana Grande left standing on the side of a road after the driver she is riding with has to spend their last bit of data on navigation rather than streaming her music.

The campaign launched the unlimited-everything T-Mobile ONE plan, introduced that August after T-Mobile did away with overages, and leaned on the carrier's fastest LTE network reaching nearly 311 million Americans — about 99% of those covered by Verizon.

The gag only works if the audience shares the pain: choosing maps over music is a real limited-data decision.

Casting one of the biggest pop stars as the one sacrificed raises the joke's stakes to absurdity.

It attacks rivals' bucket plans without naming a single competitor.

Compress a tariff benefit into one absurd sacrifice — the joke explains unlimited better than the word does.

The spot premiered on 10 October 2016 as part of the broader T-Mobile ONE campaign. No performance figures were reported.