Can you hear me now slogan

By half of all Americans owned cell phones. Price wars continued among most wireless providers besides Verizon, which held its stance on service quality. Cingular ranked fourth, with four times as many service complaints as Verizon. Another spot, hinging on deadpan humor, showed him consoling a support group of disgruntled wireless customers. Testman, as his character was called, appeared in wheat fields, on snowy mountains, on the set of the TV show Jeopardy, and in airports.

A commercial showed Testman standing nervously in an office-building lobby. It eventually moved into the hands of McCann-Erickson also a division of Interpublic.

Verizon settled on Paul Marcarelli, a year-old actor from New York. Verizon would not answer questions about his identity or allow interviews. Verizon further catapulted Testman to the status of a cultural icon by sponsoring look-alike contests in Wisconsin. References to the character and his tagline became widespread. Verizon pushed the Testman craze so far as to stage a Testman look-alike contest in Wisconsin. At the start of the campaign Verizon had Then there was the funeral of Marcarelli's grandmother.

As her casket was being lowered into the ground, Marcarelli heard someone in attendance whisper, "Can you hear me now? So it was surprising to see him show up in a Sprint commercial. After nine years, Marcarelli's contract with Verizon ended in He was then approached by Verizon's rival Sprint to try their service.

That Sprint commercial got a lot of attention - because viewers instantly understood the long-time Verizon spokesperson had switched to Sprint. In a fully-saturated category like cell phones, almost all new customers have to be poached from competitors. And what better way to persuade people to switch than to get the other team's guy to switch on national television. The Sprint commercial with Marcarelli was viewed over 14 million times.

It was a bold campaign for the 4 carrier. His name is Past. Nitpickers might wonder why his name isn't Present. Past would be Grandad, no? You might have hired Verizon's spokesman, but he's from a bygone age, one in which people really did talk on the phone. Who does that now? A Sprint spokeswoman told me: "I guess Verizon can hear us now. She described the campaign's impact as "unparalleled. He told me: "Sprint's using our spokesman because they're finally catching up to Verizon's network.