• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 3, 2010

Sprint Thursday kicked off a cross-media campaign for the June 4 launch of the HTC Evo 4G, which the wireless operator has been touting for months as "America's first 4G phone."

Centered on a theme of iconic "firsts," the effort features a social media component that lets people earn virtual badges for being the first to do certain things with the new phone, from tweeting to streaming wedding vows live.

The broader push rolling out behind the $200 Evo will span online, print, TV, out-of-home and direct mail elements. Initial print ads will highlight the phone's advanced capabilities, including video streaming to the Web and its ability to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to eight devices.

Subsequent ads on billboards, bus shelters, and mall kiosks will build on Sprint's high-profile "Now Network" campaign from last year, with headlines and copy such as "First Isn't Later. It's Now" and "Evo, the First 4G Phone."

New 30- and 60-second TV spots attempt to link the Evo to monumental technology breakthroughs including the wheel, the train, the rotary phone, and the camera. These and other historic inventions are shown tumbling into each other like dominoes with only the Evo left standing at the end.

Sprint has a lot riding on the HTC phone, which it began promoting in March through a dedicated Web site as well as in ads online and on TV. Powered by Sprint's next-generation WiMax network, which now covers 41 million people and is expected reach 120 million by year's end, the Evo promises to deliver download speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G networks.

It could also help to reverse Sprint's hemorrhaging of contract subscribers in recent years. The company-a distant third in the U.S. market to AT&T and Verizon Wireless-improved its subscriber retention in the first quarter of 2010 but still lost 578,000 contract customers.

Early reviews of the Android-based Evo phone so far have been mostly positive but not without qualms. USA Today's tech columnist Edward C. Baig and The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, for instance, each noted the phone was indeed very fast but at a high cost to battery life.

Regardless of the initial feedback from gear gurus, Sprint believes the phone and the campaign behind it will help cast the company in a new light. "We want to gain leadership and gain the hearts and minds of consumers by offering products and services that make them believe in us as a company," said Tracy Palmer, director of consumer and experiential advertising at Sprint.

Building brand awareness and brand consideration are key goals of the effort developed by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which also created the "Now Network" campaign that won multiple awards last year. "We want to be in the consideration set and we absolutely have a network that puts us there," Palmer said.

When it came to the social media aspect of the campaign, Rob Smith, an associate partner and group account director running the Sprint campaign at Goodby, said the concept of "firsts" dovetailed with the growing popularity of social gaming services like Foursquare that reward users for visiting venues or other actions.

In that vein, the effort will let people vie to compete to win digital badges for claiming "4G firsts" from among dozens of specific achievements listed online by Sprint. Participants will also be encouraged to share and brag about their 4G firsts across social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as their own sites or blogs.

"We'll put a number of 'firsts' up there to be claimed an allow people to spread those throughout their social networks," said Smith. He added that over the course of the year, the Evo campaign would shift from a more traditional media launch to a more "grass-roots and social media-based effort."