2014 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

Campaign results exceeded all benchmarks of the campaign’s objectives and attributes. Vodafone over-achieved the participation target for this tariff by 7% in less than 2 weeks from the launch date. Vodafone spontaneous TV ad recall to be at 27, whereas the main competitors: Mobinil at 14 and Etisalat at 23. The media execution pushed the campaign recognition to reach 99%. Engagement was at 53% (4 points higher than target). The differentiation reached 84% (17 points higher). For the first time in Vodafone’s history the campaign recognition was sourced from TV and not from their SMS shots; advocating the impact of the disruption effectiveness.

Creative Execution

The simplicity of the message posed a challenge to the media delivery since the message was too simple to cut through the TV clutter (20 minutes/ hour). The message of the campaign focused on the unified pricing of all Vodafone services; therefore it was echoed through the media execution by unifying all media vehicles’ messages at the same time. To orchestrate the execution across various media channels was critical. 8pm was identified as the top rated time segment to disrupt the audience experience through a “roadblock”. All media channels were to coordinate their watches down to the second to have the message appear simultaneously, including 30 TV stations, 11 newspapers, all Radio stations and the main digital websites. A teasing message launched for the first 2 days communicating “Ease your mind, one price for all”. The reveal day witnessed the same disruption model utilizing the same vehicles to announce Vodafone unified tariff.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

As an attempt to rebel against the Telecom category tradition of complex messaging; Vodafone broke the rule launching a unified tariff to all prepaid customers. The communication objective was to simplify consumers’ experience and have a single-minded message. Targeting the whole population through a simple message was a challenge as it was expected to get diluted within the cluttered Ad scene. The nature of the product was another challenge since the other Telecom operators were expected to replicate the same offering given the Telecom price war especially for the prepaid segment. The only gateway to drive campaign results was a creative media strategy to echo the offer simplicity and still disrupt the consumers’ busy journey. Consumers are overwhelmed with multiple messages by being exposed to an average 23 hours of media consumption/ consumer. Also the fact that our core target has become “multitask” makes the reach of the message more complex.