Cell Phone Billboard Ads

Please click before you read…
http://www.phillyskyline.com/misc/sprintcheesesteak.jpg

I saw this ad on Monday and it was so funny to me because we were discussing local ad campaigns vs. national ad campaigns. First of all, a lot of people who have a plan with sprint (who is now partnered with Nextel) have said that their coverage is not all that great but of course the marketing strategy that Sprint used was very clever. Do the words “please hold while the Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is located…” sound familiar? The advertisers played on the fact that the city of Philadelphia is always recognized for its cheese steaks…so they used that to market their product. The ad compared the coverage from a phone to food. I think that it was a good strategy because it was a simple but clever comparison, basically saying that since cheese is all over a steak, then your coverage will be all over, no matter where you go. This ad could be limited to Philly because who knows cheese steaks like Philadelphians do? It could be more international but it wouldn’t be as effective in my opinion. There was also a billboard not far from the Sprint Ad that stated that AT&T had more bars in more places and it is next to a picture of a city that looks like Philadelphia. AT&T also argues the same thing as Sprint but customers of AT&T that I know have expressed that their coverage is much better than that of other networks including Sprint.

There has been a debate that has been researched to see if the standpoints of both Sprint and AT&T are true.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/cingular-can-say-it-has-more-bars-in-more-places/2006-06-21

But which phone is the better choice? The ads are very significant because they are forcing consumers to choose which ad is better and in theory that would be the phone plan that one would decide to be on. I guess you have to be the judge…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNT1Y2sLLKU&feature=related (Sprint-connectile dysfunction)
This ad is interesting and funny because it clearly mentions AT&T as the direct competition instead of simply saying they are better than other networks. A form of comparative advertising is used here and I wonder what legal issues were surrounding it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEd3pS1jXJ4 (AT&T-Roger Clemens)
This ad is for AT&T and doesn’t directly compare it’s product to one other network, but all other networks. It is an endorsement by Roger Clemens and is short, simple, and smart.