2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

Axiom telecom has a trade-in service at their retail stores, which allows customers to walk in, and exchange their old phone for new ones. As this service was not very well known, we had to find a way to promote it and get a few smartphones off the shelves. Especially since, despite the UAE & KSA having the world’s highest mobile phone penetration (#1 and #3), a lot of people still use outdated phones. The audience was drawn from axiom’s fan base on social media and the strategy to get across to them was to use purely owned social media.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

The idea was to stage an intervention and poke fun / call out those people who are emotionally attached to their phones and still hold on to them. To achieve this, we used a combination of social media techniques – posts, memes, jokes competitions and a spoof video called ‘The Six Stages of Phone Separation Grief’ to help people get over the experience of parting with the phone they were emotionally attached to. The fun approach to letting go struck a chord with our audience.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The #axiomintervention hashtag struck a chord with axiom’s audience who immediately began using it. Posts and memes were loved, people started coming up with their own jokes based on our theme, and the competitions got over 700 entries from enthusiastic participants intent on calling out their loved ones in public. The promotion led to 108% more trade-ins the months following the campaign and a total of 23.1 million estimated impressions across UAE & KSA.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

The idea was based on the insight of using true human behavior (emotional or sentimental attachment to phones) and addressing it with an appropriate response. We took care to ensure we didn't embarrass anyone but just lightly poked fun at their tendency to not let go, using a combination of creative devices – we spoke to the right people and backed it up with a genuine solution, which was axiom’s trade-in service. And we helped promote a service that wasn't getting the response it deserved.