If you’re standing in a remote cornfield, Verizon Wireless wants you to know its phone works well there. If touchy-feely is your thing, AT&T Wireless wants you to “reach out” with its phone. Sleek and sexy T-Mobile wants to slip its phone into your back pocket.

The wireless companies are marketing like mad to get your attention in what may go down as one of the more expensive ad wars in American history.

Among all American brands last year, the top two ad spenders were Verizon and AT&T – and wireless consumed the bulk of their ad dollars.

Top spender Verizon is on track to spend nearly $1 billion on advertising this year. Collectively, the wireless industry spent $3.4 billion on ads last year and another $1.7 billion in the first half of this year, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR.

That was twice what the beer companies spent and far exceeds what Coke and Pepsi invested. The carriers are spending about as much as the drug companies that made Viagra and Prilosec household names – and this winter they’re expected to kick it into even higher gear.

More than half of Americans own cell phones, making the industry richer and more competitive than ever. With number portability now a reality, only the biggest companies are expected to survive, and they’re racing to target each other’s customers, undercut each others’ prices and engender greater loyalty among fickle customers.

Successful ads must lead, of course, to a sale. But it’s hard to pinpoint the financial rewards of advertising, so instead companies often rely on another measure of success: how popular an ad becomes – like Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” or Nike’s “Just do it.”

AT&T’s slogan, “Reach out and touch someone,” became so famous after its launch in 1979 that AT&T Wireless dusted it off recently when it started its new “Reach Out” campaign to replace the cryptic “mLife” ads of the past two years.
“It’s one of the great slogans of all advertising,” said Neve Savage, vice president of marketing and communications for AT&T Wireless, acknowledging that mLife lacked the “emotional quotient” of AT&T’s earlier messages and didn’t’ tap into the company’s heritage.

All AT&T brands spent $1.01 billion in advertising last year, more than half of that – $652 million – was spent by AT&T Wireless. The company ranks No. 2 on Advertising Age magazine’s list of top spenders, just behind Verizon Communications, Inc. and its divisions. Verizon brands spent $1.02 billion last year, including $828 million just for Verizon Wireless. Cingular, the nation’s second largest carrier, spent $504.4 million in advertising last year and $258 million in the first half of this year, and is touting package deals in conjunction with its parents, SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp.

Cellular ads are getting so much airtime that even the entertainment industry is taking cues from the cell phone campaigns. A recent “Saturday Night Live” skit poking fun at a Cingular Wireless commercial was met with amused appreciation from some Cingular executives. In the movie “Out of Time,” Denzel Washington’s character mimics Verizon’s “Can you hear me now?” – a reference a company spokeswoman calls an exercise of free speech, not a spoof or trademark infringement.

With six national carriers vying for the limelight, the competition for “mind share” can get vicious.

The nerdy guy – “test man” – featured in all of Verizon’s ads was found after an exhaustive search for the right persona. The company was looking for someone memorable to cut through the advertising clutter, and went with the engineering type on purpose because network superiority has always been its mantra.

Sprint PCS’ deadpan humor often connects. A recent ad in which Sprint’s icon – the man in the black trenchcoat – ministers to a support group of disgruntled cell phone users ranked as the most memorable among wireless ads, according to the most recent survey of television-watchers conducted by Intermedia Advertising Group. By Christmas, trenchcoat man will have recorded 100 TV ads.

Nextel Communications Inc., which launched a new campaign recently also is targeting the funny bone, including a spot depicting a boardroom meeting taking place entirely over its walkie-talkie phones. That ad ranked fourth in the IAG survey.