Bluesky-Walter Graff Weblog

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners created a TV spot for Sprint. It’s part of Sprints recent ad campaign which seems to have no direction. Rather it seems more like someone threw a bunch of sticks in the air and then simply picked up one ‘idea’ and tried it, even though it has nothing to do with anything else, and more importantly, has little relevance to the consumer. But it certainly will be able to be added to an award show and garnish some sort of “creative” award. But as I say, award winning ads are not necessarily good ads. This is a perfect example.
If it completely confuses you as it does most everyone who watches it, your seeing a commercial that features NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. I’ll help you to figure it out since no one I showed it to can. What you are seeing is that Sprint offers many options for consumers to help them make precise and accurate decisions and they are trying to use a famous NFL player to help the brand. In other words, Sprint offers services outside of just making a call such as checking sports scores. But this attempt is so off-base that only the very few who adore Payton will like seeing him and even then all they will do is see him and not get the cryptic message. In fact, some of the responses to the video show the NFL fanatics discussing the players but none seem to care about the message.

Many of you have told me it’s a stupid spot, sells nothing and doesn’t even make you remember Sprint. And if you are female, odds are good you will really care less. That’s big advertising for you. So out of touch. How they sucker these clients with ‘creative’ presentations like this is beyond me. They even have a “behind the scenes” video on you tube of the making of this nightmare. They must be proud of it.

This spot is a fumble with 2 yards to go and :10 seconds on the clock. What a waste of money! Is it any wonder that spots like this are numbing consumers to the point that they all want to fast forward though commercials.

This ad can be summed up by the only comment about it’s content on You Tube where a poster says;

“weird - who is that freaky kid at the end”.

Yep!