The Super Bowl may have ended but has given way to a not-so-pleasant brawl between network operators T-Mobile and Sprint as their CEOs squabble it out on Twitter.
On Sunday, Feb.1, after the revelation of the Super Bowl commercials from both carriers, John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile, and Marcelo Claure, CEO of Sprint, took to Twitter to fight publicly over their commercials.
The carrier wars started with Legere putting down Sprint's ad and taking pot shots at the network operator's data speeds for being "half assed."
Half-assed commercial, half-assed data speeds. #typical @sprint. #SprintLikeHell
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) February 2, 2015
The T-Mobile CEO was referring to tongue-in-cheek Sprint's Super Bowl commercial "Sprint's Super Apology," which asked Verizon and AT&T subscribers to switch to Sprint. The carrier would cut their bill into half if they swapped operators. "Dear Verizon and AT&T, Sprint would like to apologize for calling you a ..." said the Sprint ad before cutting to a bleating sheep. It later cut to a donkey, suggesting that Sprint's move of cutting the carriers' customer bills into half may make the operators look like an ass. Interestingly, no reference to T-Mobile was made in the Sprint commercial. In response to Legere's remarks, the Sprint CEO posted a picture to Twitter, which read: "Never sacrifice your class to get even with someone who has none. Take the high road."
@JohnLegere @sprint pic.twitter.com/UH8J6ZvMAD — MarceloClaure (@marceloclaure) February 2, 2015
However, Claure did not stop at that. He also retweeted unparliamentary tweets concerning Kim Kardashian, who featured in T-Mobile's Super Bowl ad and is the carrier's spokesperson.
The T-Mobile ad with Kim Kardashian spoofed a public service announcement.
"Each month, millions of gigs of unused data are taken back by wireless companies -- tragic. Data you paid for that can be used to see my makeup, my backhand, my outfits, my vacations, and my outfits. Sadly, all lost. Please help save the data," pleaded Kardashian in the T-Mobile commercial.
This fueled the brawl further as Legere tweeted that Claure would do better sticking to his "stay classy" philosophy when retweeting.
Legere responded, "Oh look! You learned how to use the 'respond' button. I thought you only knew how to use the retweet button."
@marceloclaure @sprint Yes – maybe you should keep this in mind when you RT people talking about @KimKardashian. pic.twitter.com/fMUCJkwUqH
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) February 2, 2015
Here's hoping that the social media fight between T-Mobile and Sprint does not take an ugly turn.
