Vodafone: WIN A F1 SPONSORSHIP

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Sponsorship

Advertiser: VODAFONE HUTCHISON AUSTRALIA

Product/Service: VODAFONE BUSINESS

Date of First Appearance: Mar 7 2010

Entrant Company: IKON COMMUNICATIONS, Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Agency Director: Brett Dawson (Ikon Communications)

Trading Director: Theo Zisoglou (Ikon Communications)

Head of Integrated Branded Communications: Shawn Marsh (VHA)

Head of Business Marketing: Luke Targett (VHA)

: (Tongue)

Media placement: Press - Metro Press - 7/3/2011

Media placement: Digital - National - 7/3/2011



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

Small Business owners encounter ongoing daily barriers- time, money and competition- which make it difficult for the success driven owners to focus on growing their business and stand out in the crowded marketplace.



Realizing the unique needs of small businesses allowed VODAFONE to extend its ‘Power to You' brand positioning beyond its traditional consumer heartland. We overturned convention by leveraging VODAFONE’s global Formula One sponsorship through a pure small business lens.



In a daring world first initiative, one lucky VODAFONE small business owner had the once in a lifetime opportunity to have their business logo displayed on the actual VODAFONE McLaren Mercedes car during one of the world’s most watched sporting stages. It demonstrated VODAFONE’s real commitment to its customers and created a compelling proof point to drive new business prospects.



Creative Execution

With both retention and acquisition being equally important objectives, the campaign required a ‘niche to mass’ phased approach.

CALL OUT

Use direct, personalized communication to the existing business customer base to encourage entry.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Announce Gary and his small outdoor event business ‘Maximum Adventures’ as the winner via leading business print media.

ENGAGEMENT

Push out F1™ content using online media to business prospects targeting high engagement environments including technology, sports, news and business. Drive awareness, consideration and increase take-up of its business offering.



The heart of the campaign and its success rested in how we could amplify the momentum and convert interest into new business leads. Four 90 second videos were created, each helping to take our audience on Gary’s exciting journey. Using online video network Joost, the content was delivered with scale using custom experience banners that allowed consumers to interact with the videos in-banner within targeted environments.



Results and Effectiveness

VODAFONE’s F1™ set new industry benchmarks and became Joost’s most successful custom banner campaign to date, evidenced by these results:



• 2.8M complete views across 4 weeks

• VODAFONE reached double of their total Small Business audience of 1.4M

• 66% of users chose to play the videos in full, compared to the typical 25% benchmark



This translated into our primary measure of success, sales. New Vodafone business connections during the key campaign months of March and May were the highest for 2010 with each month achieving 10% share of total connections respectively compared to the 8% monthly average.