• by Jonathan Blum , September 22, 2006

Sprint Nextel, the once-lowly carrier known for dorky phones and sloppy service, is making itself over as a content powerhouse.

The company has promised to spend $7 billion by 2007 on its fast new Power Vision data network. And Sprint hasn't been shy about signing content deals to fill its fat new pipe.

Sprint has arrangements with the NFL, Interscope Records, and the Tony Awards, among others. Already, Sprint has done mobile marketing for the Will Ferrell comedy "Talladega Nights."

Most of these deals are me-too content affairs with limited mass-market appeal. For example, the original Tony coverage amounted to little more than video interviews of Tony nominees. How many theatergoing cell phone subscribers can there be?

Still, there is substance to many of Sprint's deals. Sprint claims its NFL package offers the widest array of football information for wireless devices. The package, which is significant, includes a 24-hour feed of the NFL Network cable TV channel and what the company promises will be the freshest real-time statistics, scores, video, injury reports, and other updates for the upcoming season.

"We were the first with live-to-cell phone video [in the U.S.]," says Steve Gaffney, director of sports marketing for Sprint. "And the company is committed to furthering its content strategy."

Generally, marketers laud Sprint's efforts to deliver more content to mobile phones. Cell phone advertising is seen as a major boon for Madison Avenue. But there are concerns with video on the small screen.

"I spend a fair amount of time looking at mobile marketing," says Jason Tsai, an interactive group leader for international advertising agency Universal McCann. "But overall, video on cell phones as a medium is still not developed."

Tsai says he is uneasy about the relative complexity, if not outright impossibility, of buying advertising on cellular devices. The fact is, there are simply not enough cell phone subscribers to video content to make the market attractive for advertisers.

Some observers say Sprint and other carriers who commit to delivering video will face an even bigger problem: branding.

"It is going to be very difficult for Sprint to differentiate itself from Verizon or Cingular by what content they carry," says Corey Weiss, vice president for integrated marketing at Palisades MediaGroup, a privately held, independent ad agency in Los Angeles.

One issue so far, Weiss says, is that no one has yet defined what constitutes a good online video clip.

Sprint acknowledges that challenges lie ahead, but says it expected them.

"We didn't roll video out to essentially everybody in the country for nothing," says Sprint's Gaffney. "We know the churn rates with and without video. We know what it takes to make [videos] that work on cell phones. Now it's a matter of explaining what we know to everyone else."