Sprint uploaded a distasteful attack against rival T-Mobile, only to remove it from social media in less than 24 hours due to swift blowback from consumers and media coverage.

The idea of the campaign was to get "real people" for "honest answers" from Sprint CEO Marco Claure asking Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile customers how they felt about other phone companies. In the video, a subscriber shared her colorful opinion on T-Mobile.

"The first word that came to my head was ghetto," she said. "That sounds, like, terrible, oh my God, I don't know, I just felt like there's always like three carriers. It's AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, and people that have T-Mobile are like, why do you have T-Mobile?"

Claure posted the clip on Twitter on April 12, mentioning T-Mobile with the caption "sometimes the truth hurts."

Amidst public outrage and negative backlash the clip was removed within 24 hours and the CEO apologized, saying that it was "bad judgment on our part" and the point of the campaign was to listen to customers and share their views. Another apology would be issued the following day with Claure calling the public response "a lesson learned."

One Twitter user described the video as "being disrespectful to all us low-middle class Latinos," in which Claure responded to not pull that card, using his Hispanic heritage as a reason he should have been more sensitive to the situation and not publish the customers' remark.

Verizon jumped on the opportunity in gaining new customers, offering special deals as customers expressed their dissent and switch to a different company.

David Tovar, VP of corporate communications at Sprint, confirmed the videos were not paid ads and hosted six sessions with 15 to 20 customers discussing the good and bad aspects of the various phone companies.

"What we were seeking was the unvarnished opinions and feedback from wireless consumers," Tovar said. "We wanted really honest and open dialogue with consumers and we got that in all the sessions."

Tovar noted that the company responded quickly in removing the video and apologizing for offending the public. "In hindsight, we wouldn't post that today because of the reaction we got for sure."