Vodafone: WILDCARD COMPETITION

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Sponsorship

Advertiser: VODAFONE D2

Product/Service: VODAFONE 360

Date of First Appearance: Sep 25 2009 12:00AM

Entrant Company: OMD GERMANY, Dusseldorf, GERMANY

Director Strategy/Board Member: Christian Goebel (Media Team OMD)

Media Planning: Susana González Alvarez (Media Team OMD)

Group Manager Planning: Dominik Scholta (Media Team OMD)

Director Marketing Communications: Gregor Gründgens (Vodafone D2)

Head of Media: Ekvard Baar (Vodafone D2)

Head of Direct and Digital: Florian Steps (Vodafone D2)

Consultant: Yoo-Jin Shin (Scholz & Friends NRW)

Chief Executive Officer: Frederic Komp (Brainpool Artist & Content Services)

Group Manager: Ergun Kirbiyikoglu (OMG 4CE)

Director Fuse: Marc Sickfeld (awards only) (Omnicom Media Group Germany)

Media placement: TV - ProSieben - 25/09/2009

Media placement: Digital - ProSieben - 25/09/2009



Results and Effectiveness

Over 14.5 million media contacts, 50,000 spectators on-ground: a successful staging of the brand. Unique editorial integrations, a thrilling qualifying process and a sold-out event created high brand attention and customer involvement. Such an integration had not been realised in Germany before.

Facts and figures after three weeks:
-over 3,000 uploaded videos (benchmark: 400)
-over 15,000 video views (benchmark: 1,500)
-over 32,000 views of the editorial integrations online (benchmark: 5,000)
-over 800,000 visits (benchmark: 400,000)
- 32% “360” brand awareness (+ 60% vs. target)
- over 60% recalled and understood the brand promise



Creative Execution

We invented a Wildcard competition to apply for a place in the “Vodafone 360 Stock Car Racing Team”. Led by “Elton”, Germany’s most popular entertainer in the relevant target, the winner got the chance to compete against a variety of celebrity teams on-ground – something consumers would not be able to without Vodafone. Viewers were motivated to upload videos on a microsite proving why they were the best drivers to support the team. A campaign was realised on-air and online supported by editorial integrations during the target’s favourite show “TV total”. Participants had to collect votes by activating their social networks. The four attendants with the most votes got invited to the final “TV total” show one day before the event to compete in an ultimate live qualification round.

The event was aired nationwide during prime time introducing the winner in a spectacular Stockcar-battle.



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

Vodafone is a premium price brand in Germany which makes it challenging to access especially progressive youth targets aged 18 to 29.

The general task: to overbear the price barrier with alternative arguments in order to recruit consumers.

The argument: “Vodafone 360”, a new brand name and concept of “connecting your world like never before: a single source for all contacts solely from your phone’s address book – matched with Facebook, Windows Live, Google, …"

The communication goal: to build targeted awareness (20%) upfront the main campaign, to involve consumers and to make them experience the brand promise, translated to: “Vodafone is a true enabler, making the impossible possible”, with the consumer in the centre - “power to you”.

The strategy was based on developing a once-in-a-lifetime experience, enabling young progressives to become part of one of their most exiting entertainment events: “The TV total Stock Car Crash Challenge”.