Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Nextel television commercial singles out Pittsburgh

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 10:02:33 -0400

Nextel television commercial singles out Pittsburgh

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

By Patricia Sabatini, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Sunday night's Emmy Awards broadcast showed Pittsburgh as the butt 
of jokes with a clip of former Pirates player Randall Simon beaning 
a college student in a sausage costume as part of a funny look back 
at the year in sports.

But viewers who were paying attention between acceptance speeches 
also saw the city portrayed in a more flattering light.

A new commercial aired by mobile phone company Nextel put Pittsburgh 
in the national spotlight as the perfect place to locate a new 
business.

The 30-second spot, produced by ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day in New 
York, is set in the conference room of a fictitious national paper 
manufacturer where executives are trying to pick a place to build a 
plant.

Someone suggests San Diego, which gets rejected because of sky-high 
real estate costs. Someone else proposes Pittsburgh, an idea 
everyone loves.

Why Pittsburgh?

"The creative team decided on Pittsburgh because Pittsburgh has more 
reasonable real estate prices," Nextel's Laura Fleischmann explained 
in an e-mail.

The name also worked from an alliterative standpoint, she said.

In other words, it helped that Pittsburgh starts with a "P."

The last line in the commercial is from the boss, who orders someone 
to "pursue the potential Pittsburgh property pronto."

Take that, Filadelphia.

The commercial is part of a campaign promoting Nextel's pioneering 
Direct Connect service, a long-range walkie- talkie-like function 
that gives customers one-button connections with other Nextel users 
at a fraction of the cost of traditional mobile phone service.

The series of commercials, which include versions at a wedding and a 
job negotiation, highlight how Nextel helps people get things done 
quickly and efficiently, playing on the company's new 
tagline "Nextel. Done."

In the paper company spot, the meeting is over in a flash because 
even though the executives are in the same room, they all talk to 
each other using Nextel phones, which keeps the conversations walkie-
talkie short.

While its commercials are all about getting things done in a rush, 
Nextel's own public relations staff seems to work at a more 
leisurely pace.

It took two days of prodding by a reporter to get the company to 
answer questions about the commercials -- normally the type of free 
publicity PR people love.

Spokeswoman Audrey Schaefer apologized, blaming the delay on power 
outages from Hurricane Isabel.

"We're trying to dig out from the added work" after having the 
Reston, Va.-based company's home office closed for four days, 
Schaefer said in a telephone message.

Apology accepted.

Never let it be said Pittsburghers don't take pity on poor PR people 
in a pickle.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03267/225279.stm

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