By Michal Lev-Ram
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been in office for just three months, but he’s already starring in the company’s latest television commercial — an ad for its new unlimited pricing plan, which offers both voice and data for $100 a month.
The black-and-white ad is the first in Sprint’s (S) new branding campaign, which will emphasize a more “immediate approach” to customer service and highlight the “capabilities” of the company’s products, according to a release issued by the company early Monday.
Last month, Hesse told Fortune that his number one priority is improving customer service, followed by rebuilding Sprint’s brand. The key to the company’s new identity, he said, would be building on its wireless data services like text messaging, Web surfing, videos and music and navigation.
“Every carrier in America does voice well — it’s really not a differentiator anymore,” Hesse said in a phone interview late last month. “You need to define what position you can occupy that is different and then execute around that.”
Sprint’s unlimited “Simply Everything” plan was announced after Verizon Wireless (VZ), AT&T (T) and T-Mobile unveiled similar plans. But Sprint’s was the only one to include full data services in addition to unlimited calls.
But even Hesse, who implies that the new unlimited plan is revolutionary in the new ads, admits that “Simply Everything” is not enough to fix the company’s many problems. Last month, after Sprint posted a fourth-quarter loss of $29.5 billion and a continued decline in subscriber numbers, Hesse told investors that a turnaround will not happen for “many quarters.”
