2014 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The challenge given to us by Vodafone was to penetrate through the 20 minute per hour clutter rate, the 23 hours of average multi-media consumption per day per consumer, and the nonstop telecom messages. Consumers are constantly bombarded with multiple messages from telecom service providers promoting a certain service or offering cheaper rates. The proliferation of these different messages resulted in a state of confusion in the market as a whole. This meant that in order to grab the consumers’ attention an all-encompassing media strategy was needed. The key insight was inspired by the message itself, as the communication promoted a new tariff plan unifying the cost of all pre-paid services. The insight was to mirror the unified element of the message. A plan to hijack TV, radio, print, digital and social media simultaneously was in place.

Success of the Campaign

Campaign results exceeded benchmarks of the campaign’s objectives. Vodafone over-achieved the participation target for this tariff by 7% in less than 2 weeks from launch. Vodafone’s spontaneous TV ad recall according to Nielsen index was at 27, whereas the main competitors: Mobinil at 14 and Etisalat at 23. The media execution pushed the campaign recognition to 99%. Engagement was 53% (4 points higher than target). The differentiation reached 84% (17 points higher than the benchmark). For the first time in Vodafone’s history the campaign recognition was sourced from TV instead of SMS shots; advocating the impact of the disruption effectiveness.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

The campaign was launched simultaneously across 30 TV stations, all radio stations, 13 websites, and the 11 newspapers at exactly 8 PM on the 5th of June 2013. A teasing message launched for the first 2 days communicating “Ease your mind, one price for all”. The reveal day witnessed a disruption model in the form of a roadblock to announce Vodafone’s unified tariff. Following this disruption, it was revealed that Vodafone has priced all of its prepaid related services at 14 piasters. Cutting through the peak time programming at the exact same minute required immense synchronization with the suppliers. The digital placement required more creativity as we had to work around the standard buying model where the cost is per impression and book by time instead.