More on Sprint’s Now Ad Campaign

Dieter posted a story yesterday (Sprint: The Network for People with ADD, the Pre) about Sprint’s new ad campaign that mostly remarked about content.  Another thing worth noting is that business press is sitting up and taking notice of Sprint’s “hipper advertising.”

In The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Suzanne Vranica’s story in the Advertising section, titled “Sprint Touts Its Network's Might: New Campaign Highlights Growing Volume of Data Coursing Over Cellphones,” delves into some details about the “Now Network” campaign.

It quotes Rich Silverstein, co-chairman of Omnicom Group's Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the San Francisco agency that created the campaign, saying that "Now Network stands for the crazy amount of data that gets pushed through these cellphones now, such as Twitter, Google and GPS.  It's no longer just about calling."
 

Though nothing new for most who follow this space, to the business and advertising community, this is a big deal.  It also seems to be quite significant that this campaign is replacing the long run of Dan Hesse (the CEO of Sprint), black and white, straight talk ads.

Mike Goff, Sprint's vice president of national advertising was quoted saying the move was intentional and had nothing to do with the current environment. "We want to continue to keep our advertising fresh," said Mr. Goff who added that Mr. Hesse could be used in future ads.

The "Now Network" push includes TV, online, outdoor and print ads.  Though the company didn’t say how much was being spent, the article notes that Sprint “shelled out close to $1 billion on U.S. ads last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence.”

Back to the “hipper” thing…

Got Milk?,  the Slowskys, the “Computer is Personal” HP ads, the Super Bowl ads for Cheetos and Dennys, the Quaker Oats “Go humans go” campaign, and the new ear worm ads for C-O-M-C-A-S-T, are all products of Goodby Silverstein & Partners.   Remember the Budweiser lizards?  They did that too.  They were also named Agency of the Year by AdWeek in 2008.  The point being – Sprint and Palm Pre are in good hands (budget willing).

So it looks like Sprint/Palm are trying to cover all bases:  cool smartphone, cool OS, the first 4G network, improved service, and now hip ads from a very hip agency that clearly has been turned loose creatively.  

The business community and anyone who follows the advertising space is paying attention to Sprint/Palm now...  Now where’s the Pre?  

Alas the Pre Watch continues…