Sprint continues to rejuvenate its Nextel brand and has high hopes of connecting with a lot more customers.
After speculation -- at times fed by Sprint itself -- throughout much of 2008 that the company would dump its troubled Nextel unit, CEO Dan Hesse sought to make it clear last October that he no longer was shopping Nextel.
Instead, Sprint "intends to retain and rejuvenate this important asset," Hesse vowed.
Since then, we have seen Sprint launch its new Blackberry running on the Nextel network. A smattering of Nextel-oriented ads had been competing for attention with the main line of Sprint ads featuring Dan as the star.
The new year, however, has brought new signs of the company's "ongoing reinvigoration" of Nextel Direct Connect.
A new campaign complete with TV, radio, print and online ads is intended to highlight what Sprint leaders view as the superior walkie-talkie style service available with the push of a button on Nextel phones.
Hesse also has high hopes that customers will value the service for a lot more than just pushing the button to talk. The company just launched a new "push-to-send" GPS location service.
"Today's launch of NextMail Locator and our new ads is the most recent example of our continuing commitment to our Nextel Direct Connect customers," Danny Bowman, president of Nextel Direct Connect for Sprint, stated in a recent release. "NextMail is a powerful service in the Nextel Direct Connect portfolio that users rely on to communicate information quickly, and adding the ability to push-to-send GPS location information makes it even more compelling. NextMail Locator will allow mobile workers in industries such as transportation, utilities, field service and public safety to increase productivity by communicating their voice message along with their location to their home office or another worker without waiting for a call to be answered."
Moconews indicated that Sprint soon could be pushing other other similar push-to services.
Sprint representatives didn't want to say how much they are spending on the new ad blitz.
"This campaign is an extension of the well received firefighters and roadies “rule the world” campaign from last year," Stephanie Greenwood, a Sprint spokeswoman told me. "The concept resonates well with our Nextel Direct Connect customers by illustrating the many uses of the button in a clever way. And this one, of course, highlights the new Blackberry Curve 8350i by demonstrating the power of combining push-to-talk with other productivity tools like email."
In the new ad pondering what it might be like if delivery peopel ruled, some poor schmo of a student named Callahan is hunted down with the jarring phone chirps from a corps of delivery crews tracking the would-be class cutter.
"Reroute him straight to detention," orders the boss once the boy is spotted by his push-button-phone-wielding truancy vigilantes.
The stakes are high for Sprint that these ads and the campaigns to follow will help stabilize a potentially critical contributor to the company's future.
Nextel is a somewhat battered franchise today, but Computerworld just noted why former Sprint CEO Gary Forsee was interested in buying Nextel in the first place.
"Nextel, though smaller than Sprint, set itself apart with its pioneering push-to-talk technology, which lets people communicate with co-workers instantly instead of having to dial and answer their phones," Computerworld wrote. "The carrier had developed a loyal following among blue-collar field workers in areas such as construction, delivery and maintenance, but it used a unique narrowband network technology called iDEN."
Before Sprint attempted to bolt Nextel on to its business in 2005, Nextel had some 15 million subscribers using the network technology known as iDEN. Many paid premium prices and were fiercely loyal.
Today, the Nextel-brand subscribers on monthly calling contracts don't form nearly as powerful of a force. Sprint could claim only 10.4 million of them as of the end of last September.
"We continued to experience a net loss of iDEN subscribers," Sprint told the Securities and Exchange Commission this past November.
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