Note: Since I wrote the piece below the video referenced has been removed from YouTube.

I’ve posted about this on my Facebook page before.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I actually really enjoy the Sprint framily ads and the very diverse and interesting group that makes up the Frobinson family. Maybe it’s because I was a French major undergraduate and I love to hear the angelic daughter speak French while bluebirds swarm around her head, or I love to hear the Gordon character correct the other framily members that his name is pronounced “Gordin”, but the ads don’t become old or tiresome to me no matter how many times I see them.  I also enjoy it whenever a new ad is added to the campaign because I enjoy seeing what trouble or mischief the family is up to.

I did some research on the history and thinking behind the campaign, and learned that Sprint launched the campaign because its overseas parent company had had great success with a similar campaign in their neck of the woods.  A big danger with very creative ad campaigns is that viewers can get so caught up in the creative message or visual that they don’t even know what brand, product, or service the ad is promoting, but I don’t think this is a concern for the framily ads. The unique and very different framily members reinforce Sprint’s message that a framily doesn’t have to be a homogeneous group of individuals because 1) a framily group can consist of both friends and family and 2) the average American family is now more than ever likely to be culturally and ethnicity diverse for a variety of reasons, including the fact that there are now so many “combined” families. The ads speak to almost everyone, and therefore, should have an impact on a larger target audience.

I believe the ads are very memorable, effective, and will and do cause sales growth for Sprint.  A large organization like Sprint is sure to have lots of in-house and out-of-house marketing gurus monitoring these campaigns and if they weren’t effective, they wouldn’t continue to run them or add new ads (creative) to the campaign mix.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the ads.