• by Aaron Baar , May 29, 2014

Boost Mobile is giving its marketing efforts a reality-style twist, lovingly mocking the latest generation of competition shows (and their celebrity “coaches”) and letting consumers choose their next spokesperson. 

In a television spot (from agency 180LA) that launched this week, rapper/actor Ice-T and actor Luis Guzman act as coaches for two aspiring spokespeople, Ana Parsons and Gentry White. In unscripted pieces, Ice-T coaches Parsons to get more boisterous with her approach, encouraging her to shout, sing and rap about a Samsung Galaxy S5, while Guzman encourages White to say his line about Boost Mobile allowing consumers to choose their own phone and or plan in different styles (such as “puppet on a string” or “surfing away from a shark”). Consumers are encouraged to visit Boost Mobile’s Web site and vote for their favorite spokesperson. The company will announce the results of the vote sometime in July. 

The effort coincides with a rejiggering of the company’s prepaid monthly plans, which allows them to choose rate plans between $40 and $60 per month and select their desired phone, says Peiti Feng, director of brand strategy and marketing communications for Boost Mobile. 

“Boost wants to be top of mind with consumers, and this will help the brand do that,” Feng tells Marketing Daily. “It’s not a purely [transactional] decision. We tried to make it interactive.”

The idea of having consumers decide the company’s next spokesperson is an outgrowth of Boost Mobile’s “Unwronged” positioning, which put the brand in the role of consumer advocate, outlining the wrongs committed by others in the wireless industry along with a promise not to act the same way, Feng says. 

“What Boost as a brand has always been is a consumer champion,” she says. “It’s always rooted in understanding the needs of the consumer and what they wanted. We’ve been consistently launching products and positioning the brand as one that cares about and respects our consumers.”

In addition to the television commercial, which will run on cable networks such as AMC, Adult Swim, E!, MTV, BET, Fuse and FX, the campaign includes online video showing the celebrities coaching their contestants, as well as digital and social elements, Feng says. 

“We have a loyal and robust following [in social media],” Feng says. “We’re leveraging all of those platforms to promote this campaign.”