Jonathan Salem Baskin's Dim Bulb

AT&T's Breakout Strategy

With a carrier-agnostic iPhone coming to market later this summer, the conventional wisdom is that AT&T will lose customers (its phone coverage and iPhone service haven't been stellar) and a lot of profits (some say the iPhone has been not only its brightest but biggest single source of earnings).

I say it doesn't have to work out this way. There's a post-generification breakout strategy for AT&T, but it would require a massive rethinking of its brand and marketing communications. Here are the three core realizations the company's brain trust would have to reach:

• Acknowledge that the iPhone isn't just another phone. It comes from Apple, which has a much deeper and more compelling relationship with its customers than, say, Motorola or Nokia. With iPad just starting its growth curve its likely that AT&T will have even more customers who live in multiple Apple gizmo households. Does its pricing strategy reflect this reality? Are there upgrade/replacement deals that should be struck with Apple, since those behaviors are predictable? Does a dedicated team within AT&T look at the exigencies of the market, and have the authority and autonomy to craft the company's strategy?

• Admit that smartphones aren't terribly smart. With multiple providers putting things on them, the gizmos run a high risk of conflicting or crashing, yet no entity supports the devices in their entirety. I know this from personal experience, as a problem with the third-party email service on my iPhone meant that I had to check with three help desks (none of which were much help). There's a ghost in these machines for which nobody is responsible, so imagine if AT&T figured out how to step up to the plate? Multiple years of operating experience would make it heads-and-shoulders more qualified to provide that support than any carrier who gets into the game tomorrow.

• Understand customer service as benefits, not fixes. One of the most damaging conventional wisdom approaches to customer service is that it's all about fixing the squeaky wheels: considerable time and resources get wasted trying to track and reverse the limited number of dissatisfied customers (or simply critics) who share their disappointments via Twitter or other social media tools. The logic is that these negatives impact sales negatively, so turning them around supports sales. Not so much. For every tweeted complaint there are usually many more that suffer in silence, only to vote later by skipping a repurchase, upgrade, or subscription renewal. AT&T could do well to find ways to fix these problems before they happen (start with simplifying the overly-complicated IVR) and, more importantly, find ways to offer added-value (or simply recognized value) for all the good things it can/could do. 

In other words, AT&T's breakout strategy could be to keep its iPhone customers instead of accepting that they'll switch with the same (or greater) frequency than average users. It could rethink its plans based on the unique context of its customer relationships. Different deals. Pricing. Service. Added benefits. Make doing it a corporate priority.  

It's probably too late, of course. It should have started this strategy the day it signed its deal with Apple a few years ago and, as a current customer, I can tell you that I don't see any evidence that it did so. Perhaps AT&T wants to get out of the iPhone business because, as one Dim Bulber suggested to me, it has strained its system and distracted it from building a truly integrated offering (another reader said that she thought volume-based data usage charges were coming, which would be a sign that AT&T isn't happy with the current arrangement anyway).

So its breakout strategy is to encourage iPhone users to defect? Naw. It wants the customers, I bet, but it doesn't know how to keep them. It has paid a lot of money to assorted experts who've advised it how to do the absolutely right, best, most strategic things in branding and marketing communications...with the result that it has the affections of a handful of users. 

What a missed opportunity! The company literally bought exclusive access to highly motivated and profitable customers, and then squandered its resources instead of earning the right to call them dedicated, happy AT&T customers. 

Still, I believe that taking even small steps in the direction of a breakout strategy might help save some of those customers and profits. How isn't the question at this point, but rather why not? Only AT&T can answer that one.

Go Steal Some Customers

Last Friday, Sprint announced that it had lost another 1.3 million subscribers, and turned in a quarterly loss of $326 million.  It promised to boost ad spending.  Company CEO Dan Hesse said they'd "make the case for competitive pricing."  He's been the spokesperson in some of the ads so far.

Maybe I'm missing something, but who cares about a generic white guy declaring to the world that his phone costs the same as everyone else's?

Sprint needs to go steal some customers from the companies that have been poaching them.  AT&T.  Verizon.  T-Mobile.

Instead, we get word of a new branding angle -- they're shifting their positioning from "lifestyle" to "value," whatever that means -- as if anybody cares.  Value in the mobile phone business means the lowest possible prices, usually combined with the greatest amount of obfuscatory complexity in usage reporting.  Cool phones and ephemeral price promos prompt switching, and then customers get busy hating their service. 

Branding?  The mobile phone business is about as close as you can get to a knife fight in the street without 1) fighting with a knife, and 2) being in the street.

Worse, the weekend of its business announcement, Sprint sponsored the Half Time Reports on Fox TV's football shows.  What that has to do with stealing customers, I have no idea.  Maybe it makes sense for the brand positioning on some PowerPoint slide. 

And remember, these are the branding experts who gave us those flashlight commercials with people drawing cool shapes in the air.  Relevance to switching phone carriers?  Not so much.  Great for flashlight makers, though.

Instead of talking about positioning and faux catchy slogans (theirs is "Simply Everything"), wouldn't it make much more sense for Sprint to target the behavioral triggers that'll get 'em some customers? 

Here are a few ideas Sprint might want to spend money on...and skip some of the branding nonsense:



• Give some group of "winners" a year of unlimited phone use.  Blunt, brass-tacks promotional marketing would let contestants (or sign-ups in, say, December) qualify to win a 2009 of free use.  For that matter, why not do it every year, and one of the benefits of being a Sprint member is qualifying for that drawing on an annual basis?
• Offer a bounty for switchers.  More in-your-face marketing might inspire people not only to switch, but incentivize them to bring their friends.  Maybe groups of people qualify for bulk discounts (a friends-and-family mini-network pricing structure?), or at least Sprint could make its word-of-mouth aspirations more financially lucrative to the would-be talkers
• Declare Usage Goals and track progress.  Maybe Sprint needs to quantify what "success" means, and thus make success its primary brand attribute?  So name the # of customers its wants, announce its progress every month (or week, or whatever), and invent incentives/rewards for the entire user community as they progress along the path (or add them if progress falters)

Dire circumstances require true invention, not just mouthing the right words about brand and spending.  Wasting more money on marketing that hasn't worked so far is a pretty dim bulb thing to do.  Branding emerges from the business, not versa visa, so why not create an '09 brand strategy that is driven by actual company behaviors, and that offers actual, real benefits to phone users?

Sprint needs to stop branding and go steal some customers. 

Let's Buy Motorola's Phone Business!

Though it took Motorola two-months of a strategic review to decide to jettison its $18.9 billion handset business, I say we just go for it and buy the damn thing. 

Here's my plan:

• Each of us kicks in, say, $100 (that's practically pocket change in real currencies like Pounds, Yen, or Euros!)
• Cool. Now, many millions of us own our own hardware company.  Sounds like a coordination nightmare, but the old owners couldn't get their acts together, so maybe we could.  Maybe it's a question of focus
• We each commit to three things: first, we'll never take a dividend; second, we will buy at least one new phone every two years for a decade and, third, we'll sign-up with our company's service provider
• We'll use chat, virtual polling, etc., to nominate and elect the company leadership, as well as determine their performance criteria and salaries.  The team will get contracts for work that guarantee employment for a decade, presuming the performance criteria are met
• Then, we'll each submit a list of what we think are the 3 most important things we want our phone to do.  These lists can be reasonable or visionary, so feel free to include a request that, say, your phone could read your mind, or find water hidden underground
• Our management compiles and prioritizes functionality
• They go find a service provider willing and able to co-fund and support development
• Our company builds the phones, we buy them, and the world is a beautiful place

Sounds kinda simple, doesn't it?  I say it's worth $100 and a few minutes' of voting on your computer to get the phone you've always wanted, isn't it?

My plan is no less nutty than Motorola's plan to simply spin-off the company so that it will "have better luck attracting a new chief executive to run it and revive the company's reputation."

Huh?  That's the headline for a strategic plan?  Maybe not so much a plan as a vehicle to enable activist shareholder Carl Icahn to realize lots of profits from a newly-valued separate entity.

Motorola's new CEO can drone on about "execution" and "innovation" and all of the other useless buzzwords until the stock analysts stop listening; the company's problem is that it hasn't been able to listen to customers, and then translate that into knowledge that yielded products to lead, as well as apply to, whatever they've learned.

The company has wasted many millions on branding that told us about phones we didn't ask for, couldn't easily use, and weren't all that reliable.  The spin-off plan tells me that they don't have a clue about what to do next. 

We recognize the name "Motorola," but, then again, lots of us are familiar with other words, like "Edsel" and "LaserDisc."  Brand names have no inherent value (the blather of brand gurus aside).

Business creates value.  Brands are labels.  So here's a headline for you: Build an amazing phone.

So I say we take matters into our own hands.  We can call our company "Motorola," or rename it "The Dim Bulb Co."  Getting started inventing a phone that matters...is what matters....not coming up with a new line of infinite variations on the phones we can already buy everywhere else.

After we build something that's truly meaningful, we can get ourselves some of that branding stuff...

...so who is with me?

Smart Limits, Smart Branding?

AT&T has announced a set of parental controls for mobile phones that should do something good for its brand.

Called Smart Limits, the service helps control some of the length and width of the vast, sometimes dangerous, often inappropriate, and usually expensive pipeline that mobile phone services have built between kids and the rest of the world.

This is a 180 degree turnabout that should get marketed as more than just another monthly offering.

Mobile phones make possible a host of behaviors that make parents uncomfortable.  Kids can converse with anyone.  Worse, anyone can converse with kids.  Every web site is available for a visit.  Text messaging is as addictive as fast food or a drug.

Most mobile phone service providers make it very difficult to control such activities, thought very easy to pay for them.  Phones are de facto charge cards, requiring no signature or approval other than the push of a button.  My service provider offers no way to limit text messaging spending, but conveniently has a plan priced for unlimited usage.

This Status Quo has two components, one official and the other implied.

Service provider policy on usage usually amounts to something like the Verizon exec's quote in yesterday's Wall Street Journal: "Before you give a child a phone, sit down and explain this phone is a responsibility," lectured the spokesperson.

Yeah.  And while you're at it, remind them to eat their vegetables.

No parent should accept such empty rhetoric.  Of course, it's our job to teach our children, and to ensure that they act responsibly if and when their own intentions and desires might suggest otherwise.  Guns don't kill people, people kill people.  Cigarettes have warnings on them, right?

Well, wrong.

It's inane to even suggest that it's OK to create something – whether a service, some entertainment content, or simply an idea – and then shrug when it comes to how said creation is used or abused, especially when it comes to kids.  Companies share that responsibility.  Consumers should fire brands for abdicating it, as evidenced by the vacuous comment from the Verizon talking head.

Businesses must know, as we users are forced to recognize in our daily lives, that there's an implied fact underneath the issue: technology is never neutral.  Tools change the way people live, both in ways imagined, and in ways nobody would have ever conceived.

So it's not enough to acknowledge some modicum of responsibility.  Companies, just like the consumers they serve, need to constantly examine and improve how they operate.  And it's in this behavior, not hidden in the imagined fantasies of the marketing gurus, wherein brand is not just expressed, but created and delivered.

In this context, not every new technical innovation is a good thing.  Maybe the brand needs an innovation that wasn't necessarily part of this year's strategic plan.  Maybe it's not catchy, or all that much fun.  It might be an innovation that doesn't even provide immediate financial return.

This is where the brilliance of AT&T's Smart Limits comes in.

Instead of exploiting the revenue opportunities of getting kids addicted to texting, and then ducking responsibility while charging for the problems it helps create, Smart Limits lets parents partially block it.  This is loads more powerful than forcing parents to rely on being compelling or authoritative at the dinner table.

It also should mean fewer messages, which might mean less money for AT&T.  Even though it'll charge a monthly fee for the service, I question whether it will make up for the lost charges.

But it'll help keep customers.  And probably attract new ones.  Smart Limits does something for the AT&T brand that no cute advertising slogan, Oasis song snippet, or rock concert sponsorship ever could.  It makes a difference in the way that no declaration of brand somethingoranother ever could. 

It will make money for AT&T in the long-term, because it's on such behaviors that real brand strength is built.  AT&T should take the money it might waste on something like a Super Bowl ad, and use it to make it a compelling, comprehensive, and inescapably wonderful brand benefit to every household with kids on its user rolls.

I wonder if the bulbs there are all that bright, though.  They flicker lots on other aspects of the business.  Only time will tell if AT&T uses the service as a real branding tool, or simply as a give to a segment of its customers.

The themes of control and respect could be built upon this and other functions, and elevated to branding that actually compels purchase and customer loyalty.  It would be a heck of a lot more memorable than your world, or whatever nonsense AT&T spends millions to promote...and then promptly get ignored or forgotten.

Smart branding is based in reality.  And, in this instance, so is AT&T's business strategy.

Orwell Would Be Proud

The cable industry's recent campaign to rewrite history might not be convincing, but its sheer audacity would make George Orwell proud.

The ads attempt to portray cable providers as stalwarts of competition, having elbowed past the channel domination of old-fashioned broadcast TV to provide consumers with more choices.

Now, my memory might be fuzzy – or maybe it's an accurate picture of those pictures that never quite came into focus, no matter how much you fiddled with rabbit-ear antennae – but cable started out as Darth Vader to free TV's Luke Skywalker, didn't it?

It sure was great to discover more programming in the late 1970s.  HBO's uncensored content was a revelation.  More importantly, the pictures were crystal clear compared to broadcast, much like the quantum leap in quality that CDs were soon to bring to the music business.

Nobody could ever again be satisfied watching three broadcast TV channels (nor with the smattering of UHF programming which were no better than ghosts of old horror movies or local sports).  The choice to use cable was a no-brainer.  But then what did the cable operators do with this newfound public embrace?

They acted like monopolies.

Customer support went from bad to worse.  Service visits were hard to schedule, and then impossible to pin-down with any more precision than a 4 or 8-hour windows of time.  God forbid you missed the repairman; or, perhaps, if you met him.

Once in the system, consumer prices got ever-more complicated, and always more expensive, as hundreds of channels were added from which we could, yes, choose.

But how many of the 500 channels in the multiverse do I watch?

About three. 

So now I pay $50/month to watch TV that used to cost me nothing.  Sure, I don't have to squint at anything other than my monthly bill.  I could switch to satellite TV, but the costs are about the same.  My choices certainly aren't competitive, in terms of benefits to me.

Why then is it important to the cable industry to recast this history as the Story of Choice?  Because it wants to stifle potential competition. 

Yup, it's pure doublethink.

It turns out that the Big Kahuna isn't providing consumer choice for another TV channel dedicated to sport fishing or competitive cooking, but rather owning the pipeline that brings media into our homes.  Especially if you define that stuff as anything that can be digitally transmitted.

Think Internet access.  Phone service.  You've probably already gotten the pitch from your cable provider to do it all.  The phone companies want to expand the other way, and bring you that TV content.  Internet providers, temporarily flush with cash from advertising, want to assert more sustainable business models, and are also trying to get in on the game.

The idea that the likes of Google, AT&T, and Comcast could argue about consumer choice without breaking into uncontrollable laughter would be funny if they weren't so serious about it.

The various sides are trying to use legislation to create new opportunities for themselves, while limiting the competition's ability to compete.  Ten states have already passed "cable competition acts" to open the doors to phone companies trying to control home access to all media transmission.  So the cable industry is running ads defending a claim that there's already enough competition (it apparently invented the idea).  And everyone is making their claims with straight faces.

It's easy to hate all of the brands vying for control of our communications and entertainment lives.

Imagine if the branding were focused on reality.  Benefits that mattered.  More dependable service.  Exclusive content.  Truly useful tools to screen unwanted content, or to limit access.  Customer support that made a difference.  Quality of transmission, storage, or whatever else.

Instead of debating the what of competition, as if it were some esoteric conversation about absolutes, the brands could make claims about the why their competitive offerings deserved our patronage.  What a worthy branding challenge.  What competition!

Sadly, that's not what’s happening.

What can they sell us?  There’s no real consumer benefit to "bundling" TV, voice, and data services with one provider, beyond the presumed convenience of a single, huge bill.  The downside is far greater, because it multiplies consumer exposure to potential service outages. 

When consumers choose a provider, they give away their freedom of choice in the future, because the company erects negative, putative disincentives to change.  Whether wired into a service relationship or locked into a 2-year contract, the situation sure looks and feels like monopoly control.

And pricing?  It's safe to say that there’s never been a price reduction (or benefit) introduced by any of the would-be monopoly service providers in response to competition.  If there were, we’d have heard about it; the best we get are special, "introductory prices" that are no better than the deals credit swindlers offer to open charge card accounts.  The mobile phone industry is no different than the cable industry in this regard.

So instead, the voices of anti-competition argue about competition, each hoping to become the animal that is more equal than others.  Their branding efforts are all double-plus good.

If cable invented competition, then we're winning the war against Oceania.

We're all dim bulbs if we don't realize that we've seen this programming before. 

Branding a Dull Razr

I wrote a week ago about Motorola and its marketing opportunity/necessity for its new Razr 2 mobile phone, but if this ad is any indication, the branding isn't looking all that sharp.

Let's see...what can we learn if we deconstruct the ad? 

Of course, that's already giving it far more attention than 99.9% of humanity will.  Most folks will flip past it in a nanosecond, capturing little if anything from the encounter.  Reviewing ads like they're movies is like calling a spell-check program Shakespeare.

The first test should be to blink at it once, and then try to remember something.  Here's what my iconic memory registered:

• A member of the band Village People wishing he was holding a bat?
• Something is growing out of the back of the guy's head?
• He's holding a knife, or taking a whiff of his armpit?
• Whatever he's holding takes two hands to support?
• Glowing orb and glistening arms mean ad for suntan lotion?

So much for first reactions.  But what does the ad communicate to that rare reader who dwells on such stuff?

The Razr 2 comes with a stereo Bluetooth headset.  It's a phone, but now it's a gizmo that holds "over 30 hours of music."  Ok.

But wait a minute.  The asterisk reminds us that the music storage only comes with the optional 2GB card.  Lots of fine print along the left-hand margin provides more warnings and caveats than a cigarette ad.  The Motorola web URL nearly hidden at the bottom takes visitors to a page promoting the headset on David Beckham, and it costs $129 on top of the phone.

And, by the way, the Motorola store features lots of Razr phones, including a V3 version, which may or may not be the Razr 2 featured in the ad.  So the ultimate purpose of this branding isn't to actually sell anything.

How inane.

The Razr 2 is a make-or-break product for Motorola, and it needs to be marketed in a field crowded with a confusing array of products and services.  Where does the music come from that goes on the phone?  How much does it cost?  Can you use the phone as a, well, a phone, or is it only good for listening to music? (there's no obvious mic on the headset) 

What about the branding makes this offering truly unique and must-have?

Nothing.  It's just some broadly thematic, unmemorable branding, courtesy of some dim bulbs who value image and color schemes over messages that compel people to take action.  The only behavior prompted by tripping over this ad is to turn the magazine page.

Oh, and by the way, the Razr 2 guy isn't the first band member to appear in a forgettable ad:

   

A Razr Thin Margin for Hope?

Motorola has very quietly announced plans to introduce in the next few weeks the successor model to the most popular mobile phone in history, the new Razr 2.

The news got minor pickup in the mainstream media, and a few blog mentions.  The press release is buried on Motorola's site, though one of its rotating home page graphics will take visitors to a promotional site to enter a contest for more information.

An info site is sort-of visible on the home page, too, where you can find lots of animated phones flipping and spinning, all to the soundtrack I think they used to play before Yes took to the stage at concerts in the 70s.

It is on this new product that Motorola hopes to make some margin.  I say good luck.

Past all of the exquisite and obviously expensive branding already wasted on the launch, I think there are at least five things Motorola could do to sell products – not just "position the brand" – and make the Razr 2 a must-have purchase:

First, highlight a function, not a functionality laundry list.  I know the rage these days is to offer phones that floss your teeth and read your mind in addition to placing calls, but most people find it impossible to grasp (let alone value) lists of attributes.  The Razr 2 functions are many and diverse, but it all adds up to more uncertainty – it begs the question "how well does it do any of them?" – instead of simply offering to do at least one thing flawlessly.

There should be an obvious reason why it’s not just an enhancement or cosmetic update to the original Razr, but something truly worth owning.  Save the list for supporting arguments, if anybody asks for it.

Second, tout reliability.  Not only did the first Razrs capture lots of sales, but users clocked lots of time using them.  You’d think Motorola could claim to have put all of that experience into ensuring that Razr 2 calls don’t get dropped, data isn't lost, batteries stay charged, etc.  Right now, the phone is as technocute as any other.  It claims to do a lot, but what's to believe?  (see Point #1 above)

Third, create adoption incentives, not just slick branding.  There's noting in the current marketing, or in the descriptions of the various service provider offerings, that says buy now.  Are they just above such crass commercialism?  Don't tell that to Motorola's shareholders.

This could be the time to invent novel incentives, such as hardware subscription offers, back-end loaded pricing, or actual financial reward for referrals that result in sales.  The company needs early adopters to get the word out.  It's strange that the marketing isn't laser-focused on this outcome.

Fourth, Motorola could approach Razr owners as members of a community, not just purchasers of a device.

Beyond the obligatory send to a friend and Digg This options on the product web page, why not create the real qualities of community: shared purpose, reward, incentive to communicate, responsibilities.  Perhaps Razr 2 owners could get special content – like product or entertainment reviews based on their calling areas – to which they could contribute, share, or do whatever else people in communities do.

After all, phone users are de facto participants in a network.  Why is that network conceived only from a technology perspective, and not the basis for an interactive community?  The marketing folks are strangely quiet on this front, perhaps because it's the purview of technologists.

And, finally, the company could also approach Razr 2 loyalty as a usage program, not just a CRMified opportunity to throw more sales offers at unwitting customers.

Imagine if callers could accrue frequent call minutes the way fliers collect miles?  Higher use would result in more benefits, perhaps additional ways to feedback to the company, or anything that developed a sense of participation and loyalty through experience, not just the hype of marketing collateral.

There's lots Motorola could do to make Razr 2 the success it needs it to be.  The only stumbling block will be whether there are any bright bulbs there who are able to consider options beyond traditional branding.

The Network is the Community

When loopt announced earlier this month that its friend-finding service is now available to Sprint mobile phone customers, Sprint was too busy branding itself with gloriously artsy TV commercials to notice that it had more important news to share.

According to loopt's press release – Sprint didn't even issue its own announcement -- loopt lets customers share and save their geographic locations, thereby answering what it calls the most common mobile question in the world: Where are you?  Giving directions, finding appointments, or locating wayward kids might all be useful uses for the service.

But there's a nascent bright bulb buried in this news, and it was obscured by the glare of Sprint's branding.

There are many apps available on mobile phones, irrespective of carriers, and few people use more than a few of them.  The ability to see a teeny-weeny map that notes if my friends are nearby could easily fall into that category of gee, that's sort of interesting but I'm not going to pay US$3/month for the privilege.

Think of what could come next, though.

Up to now, mobile carriers have focused exclusively on winning customers on the basis of services and, more often, pricing.  Sure, each network cuts exclusive deals with hardware companies, like AT&T's recent launch of Apple's iPhone, but pretty much every service offers a lengthy menu of ultimately similar-looking devices.

Instead, companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have elected to use branding and imagine in hopes of differentiating themselves from one another.  If I recollect it right, Verizon is the network, AT&T is Your world. Delivered, and Sprint, with its obviously expensive, too-cool TV commercials and web design, is ahead.

Like I said, customer purchase decisions default to price.  Mobile carriers stay mostly invisible after making the sale, other than when technical glitches require customers to wade through the barriers of customer service IVR, or those gibberish-rich monthly bills arrive.  They're stunningly identical, save for the various ways they choose to waste money on disposable, irrelevant branding.

What if Sprint chose instead to use its customers as its differentiator?

Imagine each customer as a potential reviewer, analyst, recommender, or extended eyes and ears.  Users might want to locate one another by geography in order to check traffic conditions, or maybe get tips on restaurant locations or wait times.  A customer in a grocery store or Blockbuster could check for another one if a product was on the shelf.

Location might be by interest, so customers could ask one another for suggestions on food or hotels.  Geography and interest could combine, so customers could discuss a concert they happened to attend, or track crowds at a museum show or lines at Disneyland.

Mobile carriers could develop specializations in various areas.  One could strive to attract and maintain the best business services communities.  Another might be the most kid-friendly or useful.  Ratings and insights could be aggregated and improved, making one service truly different from another. 

Customers would then select networks based on these qualities, which would sell new, additional services to them in support of their primary needs and interests.  It sure would give those endless app menus a purpose. 

Networks as communities, and customers adding value and differentiation to the brands.  The potential utility for mobile communities could make Facebook and MySpace seem inert, couldn't it? 

I think loopt and other services like it represent only the start of such integration, such creation of communities out of carrier networks.  I'm a little surprised that Sprint didn't even bother to mention it, although the news wasn't suited to YouTube sharing and the other useless endeavors that pass for viral branding these days.

You can bet that its latest, expensive branding campaign will run its course and disappear, only to be replaced by then next one, or surpassed in special effects, alternative music, or cryptic sloganeering by its competitors. 

Perhaps the branding gurus at Sprint are even smarter than they let on?  Maybe they're waiting…

...just like Sun used to say that the network is the computer, I wonder whether the bright bulbs at Sprint added loopt because the future for mobile is that the network is the community?