For every red Motorazr a customer buys from Sprint, Sprint and Motorola pay $17 to The Global Fund combating HIV and AIDS. As causes go, there are few worthier, but Sprint's project with The Global Fund has broader implications than charity. It's a new direction for the carrier, in which it explores not just selling phones and subscriptions on price and service or even style, but one that has larger image and brand connotations that go beyond the world of wireless telecom.

The campaign certainly isn't unique in its attempt to infuse an outside image or brand into a wireless service, even for Motorola. The RAZR itself has achieved an iconic quality for style, and it has tried to leverage the Apple brand in its creation of iTunes-powered devices. But while those devices focus on an iconic service or style transferred to or created for the mobile industry, the RED RAZR goes further — attaching a particular social movement or political consciousness to a device that previously had none.

The kind of person who buys the RED RAZR as opposed to a regular RAZR is making a broader statement than one of mere style, said David Owens, director of mobile device product marketing for Sprint, which has an exclusive deal with The Global Fund and Motorola to sell the RED RAZR. Although not all customers would necessarily want to make that kind of statement, there are numerous other statements they potentially would be interested in making with their choice of cell phone, whether it's a political or cultural statement, or one of style of sophistication, Owens said.

Traditionally, style has always ranked higher than substance in the wireless product purchasing, but price has always reigned supreme. The RED RAZR, however, adds a new variable to the equation. A customer buying a Red RAZR is willing to pay $65 for the device with a two-year contract rather than $50 for the same device in a different color.

“This speaks to much larger issues in the device category,” Owens said. “Carriers are coming up with unique ways to market a product.”

Probably the most unique marketing method of the RED RAZR is that it taps into a larger global campaign, splitting the marketing of the device among the many companies and individuals that back The Global Fund. Not only does it bring the image appeal of Fund founder and non-stop promoter, U2 frontman Bono, numerous other companies like The Gap and Armani produce their own RED products, creating a global marketing campaign that Sprint contributes to only partially. Owens pointed to Verizon Wireless' and LG Electronics' recent efforts to create a mobile music brand around LG's Chocolate device. The campaign costs the two companies millions, while Sprint can rely on the overall efforts of the RED brand to raise awareness about the service.

“We're launching 19 devices this quarter,” Owens said. “We can't generate that kind of hype around each one. But if companies take a set of iconic ideas — I won't even call them devices — and sell those ideas, it's a new way to market our products.”

Telephony covers the WiMAX market

Don't miss this online series in which Telephony focuses on six vendors hoping to be WiMAX winners:

Motorola: “Mo” for momentum

Nortel: Playing up MIMO

Alvarion: Fixed WiMAX footing

Alcatel: The broadband leader

Samsung: WiBro experience

ZTE: Leveling the playing field
www.telephonyonline.com/wimaxworld

U.S. MOBILE SUBSCRIBER MONTHLY CONSUMPTION OF CONTENT AND APPLICATIONS, MAY