Sprint’s marketing chief is leaving the company

Sprint Corp.’s chief marketing officer has decided to leave the wireless carrier after meeting with new CEO Marcelo Claure.

Jeff Hallock, who has been part of Sprint’s marketing department since 1999, made a “personal decision to leave the company,” Sprint spokesman Dave Mellin said Friday.

Hallock will remain in charge of daily marketing operations until a successor is named. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

His departure was first reported by AdAge.com in a story that said Hallock would leave by the end of March. It noted that he is leaving as Sprint undergoes a review of its advertising agency relationships.

Mellin said Claure, who replaced Dan Hesse in August, has been meeting in the last several weeks with all of the executives who report directly to him.

“They were given the opportunity to express their desire to stay with Sprint or to pursue opportunities outside the company, and Jeff has decided to leave,” Mellin said.

After about a month on the job, Claure told an investor group in New York that he had begun a review of his vice presidents and added that some “might not be up for the ride.” He talked about long days as Sprint tries to turn its fortunes around and told them that “some of you will make it, some of you won’t. And they understand.”

This week, Claure said during another investor gathering in New York that Sprint is retaining and attracting high-caliber talent but that changes would come over the next 60 to 90 days.

Mellin said he wasn’t sure how Hallock’s decision to leave fit into that process.

“He (Claure) prefers to have a functional, flexible organization structure that can adapt to the changing industry, but I don’t know if it was tied to that,” Mellin said of Hallock’s decision.

Claure waited only four days before he publicly declared an end to Sprint’s marketing campaign that focused on an eclectic family called the Frobinsons, including a talking hamster. They promoted Sprint’s Framily plan, which Claure said was too complicated.

Sprint chose instead to mirror shared data family plans like those at Verizon and AT&T but to double the amount of data that customers have available to stream videos, download apps and use other popular features of cellphones.

Claure changed the marketing thrust after Sprint shed 1.8 million of its most valuable customers, those who traditionally buy phone service under two-year contracts. He has said the new plans are attracting customers better than Framily had.

This story was originally published November 14, 2014 at 11:50 AM with the headline "Sprint’s marketing chief is leaving the company."