• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 1, 2009

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners is designing a series of marketing and advertising campaigns that focus on Sprint's little-known technology products and partnerships, says Rob Smith, an associate partner and group account director running the Sprint campaign at the agency.

The series taps the "Now" network campaign that has gained global recognition for bringing attention to real-time communication tools such as Twitter and access to information on the real-time Web.

The concept focuses on the moment -- what happens now. It's always about immediate access, the real-time network and Web. A previous 60-second TV spot for Sprint -- available at YouTube -- pointed to the 233,267 people that just "Twittered" on Twitter, and 26% of people viewing that have no idea what that means.

Smith told Online Media Daily to look for partnerships with Internet companies that can demonstrate the network and how people use phones for reasons other than voice communication. "These are not phones anymore," he says. "They are mini computers."

The series of campaigns will highlight Palm's Pre, Sprint's technology embedded in Amazon's Kindle that allows consumers to do wireless downloads of books, and Sprint's 3G/4G laptop card that enables consumers to toggle between networks and log onto the Internet from anywhere. Then there is Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry that works on the push-to-talk network, and the MiFi laptop card that lets up to five people log onto the Internet.

The forthcoming television spots and online videos for Palm Pre, network cards and RIM BlackBerry will take on the same animation and live action style that others have done in the past. The back-to-school spots will feature a range of social networking tools. The Sprint phones have access to Facebook.

The MiFi promotion will begin running toward the end of July. Five people will demonstrate how they connect to the Internet using one card. It also incorporates the claim that Sprint has the most dependable 3G network and that they are delivering on the first 4G network.

"You can't buy the network," Smith says. "The Now network is an idea. You can't buy it, but you can access the technology that runs on it."