March 3, 2006
sprint
Jose talks about Sprint (a big U.S. telco) offering bloggers free phones in order to promote its new service:
Each ambassador will receive a free Samsung A920 phone equipped with 6 months free voice and data service. Using the data service, accessed through the Sprint Power VisionSM Network, will allow you to download full length songs, games, ring tones and other premium content free for 6 months.
Jose asks me what do I think of it. Well, I’m all for it. I’d much rather see big companies giving their marketing dollars over to people like Jose, than over to Time Warner, Interpublic and CBS.
Do I think it’s a particularly original angle? Not really. Sprint is just trying to use bloggers as another form of “push” marketing, same as any other media. They’re not becoming bloggers themselves. Unlike Stormhoek, they’re not hanging out with bloggers and going to their parties.
That being said, all power to them for having a go. It’s an organic process; you learn as you go along. Maybe they’re next idea will be more cutting-edge. Rock on.
Nice analysis. Mind you, even if their technique isn’t bleeding-edge innovative, maybe it’ll work! (Which surely is what Sprint cares about anyway)
I wonder how and if they’ll be able to measure the effectiveness of their bloggers-as-push-marketers strategy.
I’ve actually received not one but two of these little monkey phones: free calls, free video, free downloads, free everything. Do I use them. Not really, the problem is:
a) I don’t want to change my number
b) I can call free anytime to my girl on my ‘T Mobile Friends & Family’ — calling on the Sprint phone would charge her for receiving calls.
It’s a good attempt but somedays I think it’s just an attempt to make us switch networks.…
Sprint Blogbassador Program
I just read Hugh’s comments on the Sprint Ambassador program. It involves giving selected bloggers a fancy-looking phone, and 6 months of free voice and data service.
I think it’s a good idea. Were I to be invited to the program, I’d certainly accep…
Hugh–
Thanks for the comments. I agree it does almost seem a bit tired considering others have moved down this path (who would have thought a year ago we would say sending stuff to bloggers would be tired) but at least the ideas are changing and the realization that we need to do something radically different is starting to seep into the big dogs. Whether or not this particular promotion is succesful I think the most important thing is the change in attitude about doing some wild stuff.
I will let you know how it goes.
Jose (the curious ambassador) Castillo
I’ve seen companies soliciting bloggers to push products as if it were “organic”… meaning, I just love this product, FX TRn1000, blah
Tracy–
I did consider the sleeze factor with this because I am a marketing-idea guy as well. Perhaps thats why my spam alarm went off like a NY city nightclub. I do want to be upfront about it and the emails and disclaimers from Sprint made it very clear that I didn’t have to talk or blog at all about the idea. I am sure there are some folks that will try and push the Sprint ambassador thing to get more free stuff but in this transparent internet world I doubt many people would listen to their drivel. It would sound just like a commercial and we all know how many of us listen to those.
Thanks
Jose
Sprint Swag
This is a tale of two telecoms and their corporate blogging strategies. I blogged earlier about how AT&T found out the hard way that the blogosphere bites back. A better corporate blogging strategy is the Sprint Ambassador program. A few weeks ago, I…