Press O for Oblivion

[Jerry Raia]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/02/AR2005100201300.html' target='_blank'>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/02/AR2005100201300.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Come back, Trench Coat Guy. Until last month he was the spokescharacter for Sprint wireless phones, the guy who solved pesky cellular problems wherever and whenever they arose. He was ubiquitous, appearing in 155 commercials over the past six years. More than that, he was an icon of the Internet age -- the Mr. Whipple, the Joe Isuzu, the Madge or Mikey of his time."</i><br /><br />Ok those commercials were pretty funny I'll admit. In my travels however I hear more complaints about Sprint coverage than any other carrier. At the end of the day, a long coat doesn't make up for bad service. Do any of you Sprint users want to chime in on this?

[Kris Kumar]

I think the Trench Coat Guy did put up a nice face...

I liked the ads. But after a little while they get boring. You know the moment you see the guy, that it is a Sprint ad. And you may switch your brains off. I don't think the advertisers want that. ;-)

On the other hand the Geico ads, always take me by surprise. I am always curious about it. I watch it like a fool... :oops:...only to find out that I can save lots of money with Geico, in the time it took me to write this post. :-)

[Sven Johannsen]

only to find out that I can save lots of money with Geico, in the time it took me to write this post. :-)

Actually, I just bought a motorcycle and Geico had pretty good rates.

[randalllewis]

Thanks for posting this. I thought it was an amusing diversion. The Sprint guy was an effective campaign but I agree that better service would do as much for both attracting new customers and retaining existing ones. I am a former Sprint customer but I was still amused by the ads even after leaving them three years ago. (My favorite was the one a confused Donny Osmond. "no Tito?") Trench coat guy is too likable, you just can't stay mad at Sprint even if you don't want to be a customer again. On the other hand, I left Verizon under similar circumstances and to this day, I glare in disgust when I see one of their ads with that nerd.