Sprint Drops Nextel Brand Name in New Advertising Campaign

Press Release - July 2, 2007

America’s third largest wireless carrier, Sprint Nextel, has dropped the Nextel brand name from its marketing efforts, and is using the slogan “Sprint ahead” in a new advertising campaign unveiled last week.

Sprint will also change the name of the Nextel Cup, a major NASCAR racing event that it has sponsored since merging with Nextel in 2005, to the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Wall Street analysts have heavily criticized Sprint Nextel’s lack of distinctive branding ever since the merger, before which both Sprint and Nextel had strong individual brand identities. The combined company’s attempts to capitalize on both brands were confusing to customers, analysts say, and the re-adoption of a single brand name could be just what’s needed to turn things around.

“This is the most important initiative the company’s undertaken since the (2005) merger”, commented Stanford Group investment analyst, Michael Nelson. “This is going to be a defining moment in whether they can turn around their business.”

Sprint’s new advertising campaign, developed by San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, abandons the company’s yellow colour scheme in favour of neon-hued streaks of light. The “magic screen you carry in your pocket” is a reference to Sprint’s data network.