Sprint released ads with “Can you hear me now?” guy from Verizon commercials

Verizon had a very successful ad campaign several years ago which asked the question “Can you hear me now?”. Spokesperson/Actor Paul Marcarelli was featured in these ads, and found himself in infinite areas of the US, asking his caller on the other end “Can you hear me now?” And always replied “Good!”, implying that the recipient of the call was indeed able to hear him, no matter where he was.

Verizon Commercial

These commercials were a big part of the mid-2000s pop-culture in the US and they were everywhere. Since then, the ads have been made fun of, and referenced in movies and TV shows.

Well the same actor, Paul Marcarelli, has left Verizon and switched to Sprint in Sprint’s latest ad-campaign. The ad says “I’m with Sprint now. – it’s 2016 and every network is great.” Then he goes on to tell you that Sprint’s reliability is within a 1% difference than Verizon’s and you shouldn’t let a 1% difference cost you twice as much.

A new ad will also be run today on CBS, NDC, and FOX to be viewed nationwide.

New Sprint commercial

And the carrier has some numbers to show for it as well. In the company’s Earnings call this morning, Sprint reports the highest first-quarter-postpaid-phone-net-additions in 9 years. Although the company might be looking up, the net loss of $302 million doesn’t reflect that. It could take a couple of quarters before the numbers catch up with the additions in net improvements.

Sprint also announced that it has gained 377,000 net subscribers this quarter including both postpaid, prepaid, and wholesale prepaid networks. (These include companies like Boost Mobile, Ting, and Virgin Mobile, all of which are MVNOs on Sprint’s network.)

Sprint’s network has vastly improved over the past few years. At least some commenters of the video say so. The comments section is a mush of people either saying they have great coverage, people saying they have crappy coverage despite living in a major city, or Sprint reps trying to help disgruntled customers. Also there’s about a 4:6 like to dislike (respectively) ratio on the YouTube video of the ad.

Source 1 | Source 2 | Via