Irvine’s Boost Mobile LLC is starting its biggest advertising push yet to try to win business lost in the market for prepaid cell phones.
The company, part of Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint Nextel Corp., is starting television, radio, billboard and other advertising this month as part of a bid to land,and keep,users.
“Everyone loves our brand and our commercials, but no one was opting in for the service or buying the phones,” said Caralene Robinson, director of marketing for Boost. “We love the fact we had fans. But we don’t want only fans. We want people to actually buy the phones.”
Boost sells phones where users pay in advance for calling time on Sprint Nextel’s network. The company, which has about 245 workers in Irvine, was spared cuts in Sprint Nextel’s announcement last week that it is eliminating 8,000 jobs.
With roots in Australia, Boost came here in 2001 and got its start going after surfers and skateboarders.
More recently, Boost has targeted young people in urban areas with commercials playing up hip-hop culture and edgy musicians, artists and comedians.
With Boost’s latest ads, it’s going for a broader appeal,to families, baby boomers and Hispanics. Those are larger, more stable segments than the youth market.
Boost isn’t saying how much it plans to spend on the ads. Robinson called the marketing campaign the largest in the company’s history.
Still, Boost, like others, is being cautious, she said.
“We’re being very savvy about spending our marketing dollars,” Robinson said.
Through August of last year, Boost spent about $20 million on TV, radio and print ads, according to Nielsen Co.
Last year, Boost hired Santa Monica ad agency 180 L.A., part of New York’s Omnicom Group Inc., after five years with New York’s Berlin Cameron United, part of London’s WPP Group PLC.
Lost Business
Boost surveyed people last spring to figure out why it was losing customers a few months after they signed up. Many left for rivals MetroPCS Communications Inc. of Texas, Cricket Wireless, part of Oregon’s LCW Wireless Operations LLC, and New Jersey’s Virgin Mobile USA Inc.
Some industry watchers have suggested Boost focused too heavily on young people and alienated other users.
So out are Boost’s edgy ads. In are spots stressing low-price plans.
For the first time, Boost this month is offering a $50 monthly unlimited plan that offers calling, texting and Internet services.
The plan is a shot at Boost’s rivals.
“The wireless category is extremely competitive,” Robinson said. “We have a real opportunity to capture the remaining growth in the prepaid space, while at the same time differentiating ourselves.”
Similar plans from other companies cost $60 to $75 a month.
Boost also is targeting Hispanics.
It did little Hispanic marketing in the past. Efforts amounted to little more than a brochure in Spanish, according to Robinson.
Boost found in its survey that it was losing Hispanics to rivals that did a better job marketing to them, she said.
Boost hired Dallas-based independent Hispanic advertising agency Inspire in November to handle Spanish-language marketing.
Boost also plans more online marketing with pages on Facebook and MySpace and a channel on Twitter.
San Francisco’s Freestyle Interactive is handling Boost’s online marketing.
