Vodafone positions itself as the people’s telco in multimillion dollar Big Little Protest campaign
Vodafone has launched a new ad campaign featuring people staging a street protest demanding more data as it looks to reposition as being on the side of the customer in their battle with telcos and roll out a new range of plans.
The ‘Big Little Protest’ campaign has been created by Vodafaone’s creative agency Cummins & Partners Sydney is designed to roll out across both TV and social media channels – with the brand using Chinese network WeChat to seed Chinese language content from the campaign.
Shot in Brisbane it features a crowd of peaceful protesters taking to the streets in a ‘sims’ protest, using sim cards with slogans written on them as tiny placards such as ‘ban the billshock’ and ‘say no to telco tyranny’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDO8Pjz01X0&feature=youtu.be
Chief marketing officer Loo Fun Chee told Mumbrella they wanted the tone of the campaign to be “humble”, adding: “The difficulty is customers aren’t paying attention to what we’re saying, so we need to stand out.”
It also comes as the telco restructures its marketing department, with former KFC marketer Natasa Zunic joining as head of brand and communications.
Chee said the changes to plans, which include more data, better roaming options and unlimited calls and texts, were driven from customer feedback, as the telco looks to wrest market power back from the “monopoly” of Telstra.
“We found there were three key areas customers talk about: they want peace of mind – they have bigger things to think about than bills; they want things to be more flexible and in control of what they do with their phones; and want to be more valued for their relationship with us,” she said.
“Customers stay with their operator not out of loyalty but because there’s a huge inertia in that. We’re trying to show we understand and are trying to fix pain points of customer’s frustration.”
A very Australian protest
The idea with the peaceful protest was based on the insight that Australians have a keen sense of fair play, but are often not proactive in protesting, with Chee pointing to WWF’s Earth Hour – where people are asked to switch off their lights for an hour – as an example of a typically Aussie protest.
“Australia’s idea of a protest is you sit in the dark for an hour – it’s not being antagonistic about things,” she said.
“Australians have a sense of fair play, they do it in a way that’s a lot more relaxed. They are diverse and the different representatives you see in there, they’re really representative of the customer base we have and the pain points we have.”
Asked whether there was a potential for a social media backlash based around the protest ideas of the campaign Chee said that made it more important than ever they follow through on their promises.
“We are very confident in the product and proof point we have. When you take something like that you have to be able to stand up and deliver those things,” said Chee.
https://youtu.be/8N0eze0xXdk
“In no way are we saying our job is completed, it started with five dollar roaming, we got our network back in shape now there are things like unlimited weekends – we’re doing good things in relation to what the customer wants.
The tone is quite humble – we don’t say we’re the saviour. We recognise for the longest time as a telco we’ve been part of that problem as well, but we’re recognising it we’re aware of it and we’re trying to be proactive to fix some of these things.”
Power to You
The campaign is Chee’s second for Vodafone since arriving as the new CMO from Philippine-based Globe Telecom in January.
In May the telco released a campaign based around its streaming offerings with SVOD service Stan and music service Spotify, which Chee said was the first of four pillars using the company’s slogan ‘Power to You’.
She added: “The first pillar is a reliable network, the second is tailored plans, the third is international roaming and the fourth is a rewarding customer experience. It’s about living up to the brand promise of ‘Power to You’.”
https://youtu.be/xbG99GPYGzM
The campaign was shot with the idea of getting snippets of interviews with protesters – a number of which are ‘ad libbed’ – to seed on social media, talking about their issues with telcos, which include Chinese and Indian customers talking in their native tongues.
Those will be seeded on social channels popular with those communities in Australia, with the idea of showcasing the telco’s roaming and unlimited overseas calls offerings to them.
https://youtu.be/b8jZVbnkIMg
Marketing restructure
Zunic
Vodafone has also created a new team focussing on segments which will be led by brand and comms head Nilanjan Sarkar as general manager of segment.
His role will be filled by former KFC Australia marketer Natasa Zunic, who Chee described as a “true brand person”, and has worked across brands including Cadbury and Palmolive.
Alex Hayes
They can protest all they want, but after My Voda network went down for an entire weekend (and patchy most of the time,) I doubt my choice to go to a competitor will be swayed.
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It doesn’t matter what kind of data allowance they give customers if their network doesn’t deliver consistent or reliable service.
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Laughable as Vodafone 4G data doesn’t even exist outside the Metro areas – and fairly patchy there too.
Voda might as well save their cookie money and start prepping for 5G. They have lost the 4G game.
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They’ll always be the people who told their customers it was their fault when their phones didn’t work. It was never the network. They’d want to be giving their service away for free before I went back to them.
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“We found there were three key areas customers talk about: they want peace of mind – they have bigger things to think about than bills; they want things to be more flexible and in control of what they do with their phones; and want to be more valued for their relationship with us,” she said.
Who’s she speaking to? Number 1 from everyone i know is having a decent network and the perception is still vodafail, so they need primarily to work on that.
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I’m not a Voda customer but I like them.
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I just got stung by Virgin for the second time for going over my plan. $56 for using an extra g of data. Was thinking I would try Optus because they add data to your account for $10, but if Voda has the same, maybe I’ll give them a go. Some of my friends are on Voda and they say its fast and more stable now. Def not going to stay with virgin and telstra is way too $$$
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I saw this on the weekend.
I had a real laugh. It is clever.
Well done al!
Sean
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I have been with Vodafone for years, (A glutton for punishment I guess..)
However credit where it is due, the signal strength and connections speeds have improved greatly since I first joined and especially since the Vodafail era.
Extra data is still expensive at $10 a gig, particularity in today’s era of VOD and music streaming services.
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They still need to work on their network…I gave Vodafone another go in July 2015 after leaving during the Vodafail period. I was specifically interested in the $5 daily roaming and it turned out to be TERRIBLE. All their overseas partners seem to restrict the network e.g. in Germany, Vodafone Germany limited the service to 3G and it would drop out all the time. Ended up getting a local Vodafone SIM and what do you know…full 4G and no drop outs.
Same was true in Sweden, Italy and France – ended up having to get local SIMS in all those countries. In fact the only country where it did work was Singapore.
Interesting though – Three UK (also Hutchinson) give free roaming to a huge amount of countries even on prepaid plans.
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Been with Vodafone since November – drawn to them by a 6GB data cap. Had concerns about network reliability, but haven’t had a problem.
The real question for Vodafone is to see what it will do when Optus and Telstra launch their 5th Generation networks in the old TV digital dividend spectrum they bought (Vodafone didn’t participate in the auction). I expect that this ad campaign is just a pre-play by Vodafone to sign up customers before their infrastructure becomes out-dated.
An informed journo would be asking them about this key strategic issue, but I guess youtube clips and advertising guff about consumer-friendly plans is easier to understand.
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As the only telco who’s generated a full on protest against themselves in recent history (i.e. #Vodafail), isn’t it a little dangerous to remind people of this by using a protest as your creative idea? It’s also a little low rent against my perception of Voda – maybe they didn’t want to be seen lavishing money on ads?
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In cities Voda is doing well. Outside of that, in Aus it has to be Telstra.
Will Voda get a grasp outside of the large metro centres, or is the scale not enough for their coffers?
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Terrible terrible terrible ad. It’s laughable that it features a newspaper to report on a protest. Isn’t Vodafone all about reading the news on your smartphone with a data rich plan? Oh wait, the newspaper the perfect back up for when there’s no coverage?
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