Advertiser: VODAFONE
Agency: OMD INTERNATIONAL
Category: Commercial Public Services incl. Healthcare & Medical
Advertising campaign: START SOMETHING NEW
Account Manager: Shelley Mcgrath (Fuse International)
Account Manager: Peter Wood (Fuse International)
Global Sponsorship Manager: Tessa Tierney (Vodafone Group)
Principal Brand Operations Manager: Noreen Boyhan (Vodafone Group)
Managing Director: Cris Cicirello (Ignite)
Senior Brand PR Manager: Katalin Kovacs (Vodafone Hungary)
Effectiveness
HIGH TARGET AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: - 69% attending were target segments. - 20% (2.1m) of Hungarian population viewed live state TV broadcast (vs. 1.3M viewing the Hungarian GP)!- 125,000 experiential activities footfall.- 250,000 live spectators. - 1.7M Facebook posts and 308,000 impressions from RFID registrations. VODAFONE CUT THROUGH: - 90% attributed the event to Vodafone (vs previous F1 activations at 16%). - 38% attribution to 3G Network extension.IMPACT ON BRAND METRICS: - 95% viewed Vodafone more positively as a result.- 42% of non-customers saw Vodafone as more appealing.ROI: - €3,288,000 earned local media (619 articles).
Execution
A 6-week, multi-channel campaign provided high impact invitations (e.g. extensive paid: OOH poster campaign,TVC and owned: in-store) designed to inspire consumers to participate in the focal point of the campaign: a 4-day experiential takeover of the Budapest. Consumers were challenged to ‘Start Something New’ with live city centre activities (facilitated by smart phones and the network) such as DJing, cooking and F1 simulator racing. Tailored communications appealed to core audience segments around their passions e.g. within music press, cookery channels, online motorsport portals. Wherever possible, Vodafone invited Hungarians to take part.During the 4-day festival, a live national TV broadcast partnership and Facebook enabled-RFID amplified Vodafone rewarding Budapest’s participation in real-time. The crescendo was a free-to-all live F1 car street demonstration by Jenson Button.Post event, PR and digital activity (e.g. releasing new behind the scenes content) celebrated consumer’s experiences to maximise earned media extending the conversation about Vodafone’s role.
Strategy
VODAFONE HUNGARY STARTS SOMETHING NEWDespite high brand awareness amongst its target audience, Vodafone needed to go ‘bold and loud’ about recent network upgrades and value to customers as brand opinion was low vs its competitors. However it didn’t just want to TELL customers it was better, it wanted deeper engagement by DEMONSTRATING WITH customers new Vodafone. Vodafone saw its global partnership of the McLaren F1 team as the perfect way to engage and inspire three core audiences (digital enthusiasts, connected mainstream, high end achievers) as they were already passionate about F1. Product messaging in the past had been lost in the F1 noise, therefore for Vodafone to stay central to the conversation it built a campaign called ‘Start Something New’ around the universal truth that ‘we all strive for continual improvement and new experiences’. This connected the audience and Vodafone, with McLaren F1 representing the pinnacle of this truth.