Tim Tebow is T-Mobile's front man in Super Bowl ads
The quarterback, who is still looking to sign on with an NFL team, cheekily touts the freedom that comes with not having a contract.
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Move over Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, T-Mobile's now got Tim Tebow talking up the Uncarrier.
Tebow will star in series of ads that will air during the Super Bowl -- the carrier's first such ads. The former Denver Broncos and New York Jets quarterback, who is still seeking work with a National Football League team, cheekily touts the freedom that comes with not having a contract.
"Hey, Tim Tebow here. Still, no contract, but it's all good," he said, before embarking on saving puppies as a firefighter, going on tour as a rock star, and tackling Big Foot.
The Super Bowl ad caps a year of aggressive marketing that has led to a remarkable turnaround in T-Mobile's subscriber growth. Its surge has coincided with slowing growth and even subscriber losses at some of its rivals. The ads highlight T-Mobile's decision last year to get rid of contracts, and ends with its most recent offer to buy customers from rival carriers out of their contracts, paying off their early termination fees.
"We've seen such a huge response from our Contract Freedom launch that we wanted to showcase the momentum of our latest Un-carrier move on a much grander stage," Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert said in a statement.
T-Mobile's ad takes a less combative tone that some of the carrier's recent stunts, including issuing a press release with fake quotes from AT&T's mobility chief, Ralph de la Vega, and calling out AT&T specifically in full-page newspaper ads. T-Mobile and CEO John Legere haven't been afraid of calling out its competitors by name, generally considered to be a poor marketing decision but one that has worked well for the company.
The antics also included Legere crashing an AT&T party -- and subsequently getting kicked out -- claiming that he only wanted to see Macklemore and Ryan Lewis perform. A few weeks later, T-Mobile sponsored a Macklemore concert several blocks away from an AT&T building in Los Angeles.