Boost shakes up model

In addition to recent pricing changes, Sprint Nextel Corp. subsidiary Boost Mobile is altering its marketing approach as well as its target market.
Matt Carter, Boost’s new president and GM, said the company needs to put more emphasis on prepaid and put it in the right place.
“We believe the battle is fought in the four walls of a retail outlet,” Carter said. “We have to increasingly get more mindshare of the people who are doing the selling of prepaid.”
Carter identified that most prepaid services are purchased in local mom and pop shops and that’s where Boost needs to increase marketing and sales efforts, while working on establishing a better partnership with those local dealers. Once inside the stores, Neil Lindsay, Boost’s new VP of marketing, said the approach will also differ. Boost’s new focus is all about value.
“We are constantly becoming a more straight forward, simple wireless value,” Lindsay said. “We need to shift our dial to being a value brand. People are after simple, straightforward offers. We’re not going down the path of rich data and media.”
Lindsay also said Boost is repositioning its target market. Instead of drawing in the 14-to-25 year olds, the company is looking more at the 18-to-35 age groups. While the older demographic may not be as sexy, they typically are seen as being more stable, thus a chance for Boost to lower its ballooning churn results. Also, the older demographic may be willing to spend a few bucks more on service.
Further, Lindsay said Boost will expand into new markets and come out with additional offerings soon. The company originally launched selling basic prepay services using Sprint Nextel’s iDEN network that also allowed Boost to offer a push-to-talk service for $1 per day. The carrier recently supplemented its prepaid service with an unlimited local calling plan similar to rivals Leap Wireless International Inc. and MetroPCS Communications Inc., riding on Sprint Nextel’s CDMA network.