12680: Sprint CMO WTF.

Advertising Age reported Sprint is continuing to create a real-life Frobinson Framily/Shirato Family with its marketing team, recruiting Kevin Crull as its new Chief Marketing Officer. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son (who is Japanese), Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure (who is Bolivian), Crull (who is Canadian) and the Midwestern Americans at Sprint’s Kansas-based headquarters make for a pretty diverse enterprise. Yet the client chose to partner with a corrupt and culturally clueless White advertising agency in Deutsch LA. Go figure.

Sprint Names Canadian Broadcast Exec Kevin Crull CMO

Exec Left Bell Media in April After Admitting to Trying to Influence Coverage of Subsidiary

By Maureen Morrison

Sprint has named Kevin Crull its new chief marketing officer.

Mr. Crull, a Canadian media and broadcast executive, will be responsible for all products and services, advertising, customer acquisition and retention, and all digital and social efforts, according to a statement. He’ll report to President-CEO Marcelo Claure and will relocate to Kansas City, Mo., where Sprint’s headquarters are.

Mr. Crull’s most recent position as president-CEO of Bell Media, Canada’s largest media and broadcasting company, ended in April 2015, when he stepped down after admitting he tried to influence coverage by one of Bell’s subsidiaries, CTV.

According to a press release, while at Bell, Mr. Crull led the acquisition of CTV Globemedia in late 2010, creating the foundation for Bell Media, Inc. Following that, he led the acquisition and integration of Astral Media in 2012 and 2013. He was president of the Bell Residential Services, a telecommunications company, providing broadband, home phone, and satellite and fiber television service in Canada. Before that, he was at AT&T, working on the consumer and small-business sales and marketing. He was also senior VP-general manager of AT&T’s wireless initiative.

Sprint’s former CMO, Jeff Hallock, late last year confirmed he was departing the company by the end of the first quarter. That announcement came amid a major agency review and corporate overhaul by Mr. Claure, who joined the ailing carrier last August.

Sprint did not confirm until December that it had hired Interpublic’s Deutsch as its new agency, although incumbent Figliulo & Partners was said to remain on the roster. By the time the company had confirmed Deutsch’s win, the shop had already produced TV spots that were airing.

“Kevin did an amazing job at Bell Media, and I expect him to do even better at Sprint,” said Mr. Claure in a statement. “Sprint is privileged to attract someone of his caliber and experience in media, content and wireless. As the industry shifts towards providing unique experiences and content to wireless customers, Kevin’s exceptional experience will allow him to be a great contributor in Sprint’s transformation journey.”

“I’m thrilled to join Sprint, a company that I believe has limitless potential for growth and transformation at a very exciting time in the industry,” Mr. Crull said in the statement. “I believe the Sprint team is showing great momentum and has a plan to win in the marketplace. The wireless industry offers tremendous opportunity for profitable growth. My past experience has been all about execution and transformation and delivering results, and this is what I intend to do as part of the Sprint team.”

One of Mr. Claure’s first acts was to pull the “Framily Plan” pitch, which Figliulo & Partners had marketed with its “Frobinsons” campaign starring a cast of oddball characters.

As of late December, Sprint commanded 15% of the U.S. market, trailing Verizon (33%) and AT&T (28%), according to comScore. Yet amid a network overhaul, Sprint is bleeding customers—it lost 714,000 postpaid subscribers over the past year. It’s also confronting a credible challenge from T-Mobile, which added 2.3 million customers during the third quarter.

12062: Sprint Sputters.

MediaPost reported Sprint is committed to changing its advertising, meaning the Frobinson framily is dead. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure essentially acknowledged the campaign was an abject failure. There is, however, no acknowledgement that mimicking the SoftBank Shirato family was a major blunder. Additionally, there is no acknowledgement that the campaigns preceding the Frobinsons—from agencies including Digitas, Leo Burnett, Goodby Silverstein & Partners and TBWA\Chiat\Day—have also failed to lift Sprint sales.

While discussing the launch of a new Sprint Family Share Pack, Claure said, “We just kept it simple and it’s always going to be simple. It’s going to be the same price or lower price than AT&T and Verizon and we are always going to give you double the data. And the reason why we did that is I don’t know if any of you know gigs and gigabytes and megabytes, but I don’t.” Online critics have slapped Claure for his ignorance on megabytes; but the truth is, Claure is mega-ignorant in worse ways, as evidenced by subsequent mutterings that included, “Whenever you got to make a choice of why you are going to buy a phone, you are going to buy it because of pricing. That was the T-Mobile play, the value play or you are going to buy because of network. And that’s a Verizon and AT&T play. And unfortunately up to a month ago, we stood nowhere. We were the most expensive. And our network, it’s a work in progress. So, you are going to see us now be the value driver and then you are going to see us potentially in the market for really strong advertisement network, which means if you can have price on networks, I think you have a winning value proposition.” Okay-doke. Claure admits his company is deficient in the two most important areas for consumers, yet he believes Sprint will succeed regardless. Actually, he’s not even correct in his summation of the industry, as iPhone and Android show that devices are key drivers too.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son (who probably influenced the creation of the Frobinson framily), Claure and the Midwestern Sprint troops are starting to make the Frobinsons and Shiratos look downright normal.

Oops, We Had A Hamster Talking To People — Sprint Will Simplify Ad Messaging

By Larissa Faw

Telecommunications is a competitive industry. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint all battle for the same customer. This spring, Sprint spent millions advertising a plan called Framily with a family called the Frobinsons. “We said we are going to make things different,” says Marcelo Claure, the new president and CEO of Sprint, speaking at the Goldman Sachs 23rd Annual Communacopia Conference.

Well, Framily didn’t work. In the first six months of the year, Sprint lost 1.4 million customers. “I spoke to few people who were in the stores and we have about 2,000 doors of dealers. They said it’s really hard to sell. Our plans are confusing or marketing was a hamster talking to people. We are having a hard time selling the products. So, what we did is that we basically completely changed our value proposition.”

Sprint is focused “100% in terms of changing its advertising,” says Claure, to instead bring the right value proposition to customers. The company has put its advertising account in review.

Now, the brand has ditched the Frobinsons to launch the Family Share Pack. “We just kept it simple and it’s always going to be simple,” says Claure. “It’s going to be the same price or lower price than AT&T and Verizon and we are always going to give you double the data. And the reason why we did that is I don’t know if any of you know gigs and gigabytes and megabytes, but I don’t.”

Ultimately, Sprint realizes that it has to compete with straight-forward advertising, rather than obscure messaging. “Whenever you got to make a choice of why you are going to buy a phone, you are going to buy it because of pricing,” says Claure. “That was the T-Mobile play, the value play or you are going to buy because of network. And that’s a Verizon and AT&T play. And unfortunately up to a month ago, we stood nowhere. We were the most expensive. And our network, it’s a work in progress. So, you are going to see us now be the value driver and then you are going to see us potentially in the market for really strong advertisement network, which means if you can have price on networks, I think you have a winning value proposition.”

12034: Sprint Seeks Creative Saviors.

Adweek reported Sprint is seeking a new creative agency. Why bother? Over the years, Sprint has hired some of the top shops—as well as some of the bottom (e.g., Leo Burnett, Digitas and the incumbent shithole)—and always failed to move the sales needle. Innovative advertising is not the answer for the bombing brand.

In January, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son was quoted as saying, “At one recent meeting, I learned that our advertising at Sprint was not cost-effective. This made me quite angry. Sprint spends a large amount of money on advertising every year, but its effects have been almost negligible. … I directed the Sprint executives to terminate all existing contracts with the company’s advertising agencies. We will shortly start from scratch on advertising, with new agents also making proposals.” Okay, but it looks like Son forced the birth of the Frobinson framily, so his creative judgment is questionable at best—and shitty at least.

Given the international diversity at Sprint—from the Midwestern troops to the Bolivian Sprint CEO to the Japanese SoftBank CEO—perhaps it’s time to look beyond the U.S. White agencies. Then again, a galaxy-wide search would probably not identify candidates qualified to resuscitate Sprint.

Sprint Looks for New Creative Lead Agency

Search said to focus on TV work

By Noreen O’Leary

Sprint is looking for a new creative lead agency, sources said. The review is said to be focused on above-the line marketing, much of which is spent on TV. The telecommunications company spends about $800 million annually on measured media but it could not be determined how much of that amount is invested in television advertising.

In late 2011, the Overland Park, Kansas company unexpectedly shifted its account from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to “Team Sprint,” a unit comprised of Publicis Groupe agencies and led by DigitasLBi. While the Publicis digital shop initially worked with corporate sibling Leo Burnett, which produced Sprint TV commercials, more recently the marketer has moved that assignment to start-up Figliulo & Partners to handle TV spots. (ARC/Leo Burnett continues to handle Sprint’s shopper marketing.)

It’s not clear if the current search also includes digital work handled by DigitasLBi.

The agency search is not entirely a surprise given critical comments the CEO of Sprint’s new parent Softbank made at the beginning of this year: Writing in a January guest column for Nikkei Asian Review, Masayoshi Son said “At one recent meeting, I learned that our advertising at Sprint was not cost-effective. This made me quite angry. Sprint spends a large amount of money on advertising every year, but its effects have been almost negligible.” The executive continued: “I directed the Sprint executives to terminate all existing contracts with the company’s advertising agencies. We will shortly start from scratch on advertising, with new agents also making proposals.”

DigitasLBi and Figliulo, started last fall by former TBWA\Chiat\Day N.Y. chief creative officer Mark Figliulo, could not be reached for comment. A Burnett rep declined to comment, referring calls to Sprint execs who did not respond to an inquiry.