NEW YORK

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has bested Ogilvy & Mather to land creative duties on Sprint Nextel’s account, the client confirmed.

Estimated revenue on the business is $40 million.

Sprint, which spends about $1.2 billion annually in major measured media, launched the review in January and on Tuesday narrowed the field to Omnicom Group’s Goodby in San Francisco and WPP Group’s Ogilvy here, eliminating WPP’s Young & Rubicam in New York.

Sprint Nextel late Saturday confirmed Adweek.com’s report earlier today that Goodby had won the business. Mark Schweitzer, client CMO, said the shop’s “sterling reputation and creative talents are second to none.”

Goodby will succeed the tandem of Omnicom’s TBWAChiatDay in New York, which handles consumer-directed ads, and Publicis Groupe’s Publicis & Hal Riney in San Francisco, which creates business-directed ads. Roughly three-quarters of the revenue is tied to consumer work, according to sources.

Media duties, which were not in play, remain at WPP’s MindShare in New York.

The selection came after the finalists made presentations Friday morning to Sprint’s executive team, including CEO Gary Forsee, at the company’s office in Kansas City.

The No. 3 telecommunications player’s current “Power up” campaign began in September, after just 13 months of telling consumers “Yes, you can.” The latter effort centered on personal empowerment via Sprint’s many services, while current ads focus on Sprint’s network capabilities. In that respect, “Power up,” which features actor Ron Livingston, resembles the positioning of No. 2 Verizon Wireless, which since October 2005 has used the tagline, “It’s the network.”

By Andrew McMains

Source: ADWEEK