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Apple, Motorola & Cingular Drop It Like It's Hot

SPRINT LAUNCHES MERGED COMPANY

New Logo, Marketing Message and Emphasis on Sports Entertainment
By Alice Z. Cuneo

Sprint, now a stronger No. 3 telecommunications player following its acquisition of Nextel Communications, today relaunches and repositions itself as as a sports-entertainment company as well as a telecommunications giant.

Nascar, NFL
In addition to Nextel's Nascar contract, Sprint last month signed a five-year, $600 million deal for exclusive cell phone content with the National Football League. It also earlier this year renewed its exclusive sponsorship of the U.S. Ski & Sports Association.

Sprint also has a contract with the National Hockey League. There are no deals in the works with the National Basketball Association or Major League Baseball, according to a spokesman.

40 million subscribers
The new Sprint, with 40 million subscribers, is also adopting a new marketing stance that boasts it "will challenge the rules, end limitations and stand against restriction." The company's new advertising tagline is: "Yes, you can." The Nextel "Done" tagline has been dropped.

In blending the two companies, the dominant advertising creative is centered on the Nextel look and feel, with bold yellow background and black type. A modified Sprint logo, represented by an abstract graphic of Sprint's long-running "Pin drop" campaign, will appear in print ads, and the campaign's "ping" sound will be heard on broadcast spots. Gone from the ads is the black-trench-coat-wearing government-agent type "Sprint guy," played by actor Brian Baker, who solved callers' problems with poor reception or unfair cell phone offers. Chief Marketing Officer Mark Schweitzer called that campaign part of Sprint's "history" and said it was dropped to ensure consumers would view the merged company in a new light.

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