When Miranda answers her cell phone, it's got a Sprint logo. Carrie's pink, taped-together, Swarovski rhinestone-covered Samsung 510 is a Sprint phone. In Samantha's Los Angeles office, she has a framed photo of boyfriend Smith Jarrod in a fictitious Sprint ad. When Carrie is in a panic, searching for a phone to borrow after misplacing hers before her wedding, Samantha hands her an Apple iPhone, but she looks at it and says, "I don't know what to do with this" and tosses it aside. Someone else hands her a Sanyo DLX with a Sprint logo, which she uses. In Mexico, Carrie chucks her sparkly Samsung 510 into the ocean. Later, her assistant Louise presents her with a Sprint bag containing a Muziq phone by LG with a Sprint logo.
The person responsible for all of that Sprint exposure is Kansas City's Stephanie Kelly, who works for Sprint in marketing. She tells that a firm out of Chicago called Spotlight Marketing assists her in making deals. "We review all the various scripts that come out of Hollywood for good product placement for any script that is heavily using wireless," Kelly says. For Sex and the City, Kelly says, "they were on their phones and they definitely do have an image of being a hot brand. You want to be in that movie – that one was kind of a no-brainer."Kelly made a barter agreement with New Line Cinema, so Sprint's visibility in the movie wasn't guaranteed. "Instead of paying fees, we just gave them the phones and the service to use in the movie," she explains. "If we were actually paying money and there were guaranteed placements in the movie then you do negotiate each specific instance and how long it will last and how it's being used and that sort of thing... Since there are no guarantees, it's almost lucky what made it into the movie." Kelly anticipates more Sprint exposure in the upcoming Shia LaBeouf film Eagle Eye, due out September 26, and He's Just Not That Into You in October. Kelly has also gotten Sprint on television's Survivor, Heroes, Oprah and 24 – on the latter, Jack Bauer has always used a Sprint phone.
As far as jobs go, Kelly admits hers is pretty sexy. "I like it. It's fun. It's not as glamorous as I think people think it is, but I'd rather do it than anything else."