Sprint taking new, smarter marketing approach

We’ll be frank: we don’t like Sprint much. Maybe it all goes back to our youthful days, when only one of our friends had a cell phone. It was on the Sprint network, and you seriously could not get a call through at some points. Kinda defeated the purpose of having a cell phone. Since then, we’ve avoided Sprint as much as possible, even though they certainly have improved their service. Still, they just don’t match up to the AT&Ts and Verizons in terms of voice coverage. Spring begins a new ad campaign on July 1, though, in which they will tout their data services as their leading feature. They’re also jettisoning the Nextel brand, which analysts believe is confusing consumers. And that’s the last thing you want: a confused consumer. Because if you do that, they shop elsewhere.

But Bill Morgan, a senior vice president for corporate marketing said Sprint wanted to move on to talking about data services such as music and navigation, where the company is strong, instead of focusing on voice-service reliability.

We love the idea. The numbers bear out that Sprint just doesn’t have the level of voice coverage that AT&T and Verizon have. They’ve always had quality data services, though, and are finally using them to their advantage. Emphasize your strengths. We think it’s the No. 1 rule of advertising. [Scientific American]]]>