Droga5 gets pretty dark in its big game ad for Sprint, with one dad going to extreme measures to get out of his Verizon contract.
Sprint moved its creative account from Deutsch to Droga5 without a review this past November. It seems from the Super Bowl spot, however, that Paul Marcarelli, who was formerly Verizon’s “Can you hear me now?” guy and made his debut for Sprint in Deutsch’s “Paul Switched” last June. The effort also continues the brand’s approach of calling out Verizon by name and touting its lower rates and network reliability “within one percent of Verizon.”
Sprint alluded to the nature of the spot last week, with CEO Marcelo Claure promising it would be “a real cliffhanger.” Apparently, he’s rather fond of puns.
Marcarelli shows up to inform the father of all this, after he goes through the trouble of faking his own death. That’s pretty dark territory for a cellphone network’s Super Bowl ad and a pretty extreme way to make a point about your competitor but it’s also likely to grab viewers’ attention and Droga5 is pretty psyched about the effort.
“We’re excited to share our first work for Sprint in the Super Bowl. It’s a humorous, Big-Gamey twist on the campaign Sprint is currently running,” Droga5 executive creative director Matt Ian said in a statement. “We wanted to capture the helplessness of being trapped in a cycle of insane fees, and let Verizon customers know Sprint is the right option.”
Credits:
Agency: Droga5 NY
Creative Chairman & Founder: David Droga
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Executive Creative Director: Matt Ian
Creative Director: Todd Rone Parker
Creative Director: Daniel Kelly
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Production Development Director: Lucia Grillo
Co-heads of Broadcast Production: Jesse Brihn, Bryan Litman
Executive Producer: Ross Plummer
Associate Broadcast Producer: Caroline Vassiliades
Associate Director, Business Affairs: Librado Sanchez
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Head of Digital Strategy: George Bennett
Group Strategy Director: Meghann Mackenzie
Group Comms Strategy Director: Chanelle Flavell
Strategy Director: Kevin DeStefan
Group Account Director: Blake Crosbie
Account Director: Kelly Harrington
Account Manager: Tori Pierce
Group Project Manager: Mark Lester
Client: Sprint
CEO: Marcelo Claure
CMO: Roger Solé
VP of Brand, Advertising & Social: Tracy Palmer
Director of Advertising: Stacey Shupert
Advertising Manager: Tahryn Nicastro
Audio/Video Editor: Ignacio Galarza
Photographer: Steve Gibson
Production Company: Smuggler
Director: Randy Krallman
DOP: Darren Lew
Executive Producers: Patrick Milling Smith, Brian Carmody, Shannon Jones
Chief Operating Officer: Andrew Colon
Line Producer: Ian Blain
Editorial: Mackcut
Editor: Gavin Cutler
Editorial Producer: Gina Pagano
Assistant Editor: Pamela Petruski
Post Production: The Mill
Executive Producer: Zu Al-Kadiri
Senior Producer: Colin Blaney
Lead Flame: Chris Sonia
Sound: Sound Lounge
Mixer: Seth Phillips