Hasta La Creative!

Chances are you’ll recognize Paul Marcarelli as Verizon’s “Can you hear me now?” guy, but in Deutsch’s latest spot for Sprint, he’s switched networks.

“Hey, I’m Paul, and I used to ask if you could ‘hear me now’ with Verzion,” Marcarelli says at the opening of the spot. “Not anymore, I’m with Sprint now,” he continues. The spot keeps things simple, focusing on Marcarelli’s Sprint conversion, which he explains is because “it’s 2016 and every network is great.” So, since you can probably hear him now regardless of network and “Sprint’s reliability is now within one percent of Verizon” (a claim backed up by a recent Nielsen study) it’s not worth paying more for marginally better coverage. (The ad claims “Sprint saves you 50 percent on most Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile rates.”)

It’s a pretty convincing sales point, relying on a simple delivery from a competitor’s former spokesperson. Deutsch and Sprint are clearly relying on that latter point, and Marcarelli’s notoriety from spending a decade in the “Can you hear me now?” role for Verizon to attract viewer attention and hammer the message home. The 30-second broadcast spot made its debut last night during the NBA Finals and will continue to run on cable and broadcast, with support from digital, print and OOH initiatives.

As Adweek points out, Marcarelli’s relationship with Verizon was somewhat contentious for the actor, as outlined in a  2011 profile in The Atlantic. Verizon made him sign a contract greatly restricting his creative and financial responsibilities before eventually firing him via email. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that he would sign on with a competing wireless company. 

“I’ve watched with interest as each of the wireless carriers claims to be the most reliable or the fastest. But what I’ve found is … the ‘better’ that some other national carriers claim about reliability is really less than a 1 percent difference, ” Marcarelli said in a statement, echoing his sentiments from the ad itself. “Does anyone even really notice a difference of less than 1 percent? But when it comes to saving money … Sprint is by far the best choice for consumers. You get a highly reliable network and save 50 percent off most of the rates other national wireless carriers charge. Now that is noticeable.”

The new campaign follows Sprint’s appointment last December of Roger Solé as its new chief marketing officer. Sprint subsequently decided to move more of its production work to its in-house production unit Yellow Fan Studios, resulting in a round of layoffs at Deutsch’s Los Angeles offices. Deutsch’s launch of this new campaign, probably the brand’s most high-profile effort in some while, could possibly help the agency convince Sprint to not move too much creative work to Yellow Fan Studios going forward, especially in the wake of backlash to an in-house effort which some deemed offensive and the brand subsequently pulled. 

180LA appointed Karan Dang to the role of digital creative director and added several other creatives to its digital team.

The news follows several recent new business wins for the Los Angeles office including ASICS, University of Phoenix and, most prominently, Miller Lite.

“Karan is all about digital first,” said 180LA managing partner and CCO William Gelner. “He brings new thinking to 180LA that will accentuate what we do best – cutting-edge, digitally focused creative.”

Dang arrives at 180LA following Deutsch’s recent downsizing in response to Sprint moving more production work in-house. He served as an associate creative director, digital with Deutsch for nearly a year and a half, working on the agency’s digital accounts for Sprint, Volkswagen USA, Target and Taco Bell. Before joining Deutsch, Dang spent over a year and a half as a senior creative with TBWA Singapore, working with clients including Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore Airlines and Great Eastern Life Insurance. Before being named a senior creative, he spent nearly four years as a creative with the agency, working with brands such as SBC, Unilever, Bayer, Silk Airlines, Unilever, Nokia and Microsoft. He’s also spent time as a creative with BBDO/Proximity Singapore and Grey Singapore.

“I have been blown away by the work that 180LA has produced in the past,” said Dang. “I welcome the challenge of making groundbreaking interactive, experiential and social campaigns for stalwart clients. In our mission, we are backed by a bunch of passionate, hungry and talented folks, and a bold leadership team.”

The agency also announced the appointments of Stephen Fahlsing (veteran of several production companies) as executive producer, Jefferson Wu (formerly with TBWAChiatDay) as creative technologist, Stacey Savage (most recently with Meredith) as senior UX designer, Caspar Bock as digital copywriter and Toon Leysen as digital art director.

We have no official confirmation at this time, but sources tell us that the latest winner in Sprint’s ongoing relaunch/review is Miami-based Hispanic agency Alma DDB.

As we know, Marcelo Claure became president/CEO of the phone company last August–and since then he has taken the traditional new executive route by tweaking everything about the company he runs, including its relationships with all of its agencies.

One aspect of his “rollout” was a campaign created by Dallas-based Inspire, which won the sprint advertising and PR accounts in 2012. The ad, which ran on Univision, marked the company’s attempt to peel a larger share of the Spanish-speaking market away from its key competitors Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

The spot starred Claure, who used the opportunity to introduce himself to Hispanic audiences and review his accomplishments as “not only the first Hispanic CEO of Sprint, but the first foreign-born Hispanic to lead any major U.S. telecommunications firm.”

Here it is via AdAge:

A spokesperson for Sprint told us today that the company has “nothing to announce at this time,” and DDB also declined to comment.

This is not particularly surprising. We broke news of Deutsch LA’s pending victory over Arnold in the Sprint creative review last November nearly six weeks before the client gave the “exclusive” to AdAge.

Updates when they come in.

With the help of a bellowing goat, wireless carrier Sprint sends a shout-out to rivals Verizon and AT&T with this “super apology,” which aired during the third quarter of last night’s battle.

The ad from Deutsch LA aims at fellow carriers by saying sorry for calling competitors a goat, hence the featured animal in the advertisement, one that takes a jab at rivals’ expensive rates (calling them “sheep” in the process) while continuing Sprint’s “cut your bills in half” mantra.

Speaking to the Kansas City Star before the big game, Sprint chief marketing officer Bill Hallock said:

“We’re going to have a little fun with it. At the Super Bowl people look for some humor, some entertainment value…and that’s what we’ve embedded in this [ad] as well.”

All it takes is a screaming goat to hammer the message home:

In other Greatest Clients Ever news, Sprint’s CEO endured some friendly trolling via T-Mobile John Legere during the game…and retweeted many fans’ messages mocking the latter’s campaign by Publicis Seattle.

Look what @marceloclaure did to @JohnLegere…he’s all worked up cause Sprint has an awesome commercial and T-Mobile has Kim.

— JoshuaM (@JoshMSr) February 2, 2015

So Sprint had a rough quarter — it lost half a million customers over the past three months. Now the company wants investors to know that the message coming from whichever agency wins its endless creative review will be more “aggressive.”

First, all tips that we’ve received about Deutsch officially winning the account are false as of this very moment — though we do hear that the final pitch occurred on Tuesday, that Deutsch and Arnold are the last two agencies standing, and that certain readers are pulling very hard for the former.

Way back in September, the company’s new President/CEO Maurcelo Claure said that the “Framily” was dead and that the strategy moving forward was a full reset with pivot: “…it’s always going to be simple” because “you are going to buy a phone…because of pricing.”

Now it seems he’s changed his tone slightly.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In what may be the least surprising news of the week, Sprint executives officially announced plans to “simplify” their creative efforts moving forward.

Yes, that means no more “Framily” and no more Frobinsons despite Sprint CMO Jeff Hallock’s earlier claims that the “decision is still to be determined.” Here’s the killer quote delivered by new President/CEO Maurcelo Claure at Goldman Sachs 23rd Annual Communacopia Conference (which sounds like an awesome party):

“Our plans are confusing [and our] marketing was a hamster talking to people. We are having a hard time selling the products.”

OK, now tell us how you really feel.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Remember the "map wars" of 2009, when AT&T and Verizon spent a combined $4 billion on ads (and went to court) to claim coverage-area supremacy? Well, it looks like Verizon is firing another round of salvos.

For a new installment of its "Reality Check" campaign, Verizon and McCann New York created a modern art gallery featuring 4G coverage areas offered by competitors AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. Visitors are asked to describe what they see, with the point being that few can recognize the illustrations as maps of the United States.

It's a clever gag and not overly aggressive, but will it mark the start of another round of cartography conflict?