ÉTUDE DE CAS

Small Enterprises SoHo – Vodafone SBC

Introduction

As the mobile market continues to mature, elements of it inevitably become commoditised. A dilemma for Vodafone is whether to resist or lead this trend – and when to act. Act too early, and profitability will be needlessly given up; act too late and market share will be stolen by competitors.

In the case of the small business community, Vodafone wanted to leverage the ‘relatively small world’ that surrounds most small businesses by offering them free and reduced calls to specific numbers and other Vodafone subscribers.

Background

In this case, in response to the ongoing commoditisation of voice calls across the market, Vodafone wanted to raise the profile and take up of the ‘inclusive calls’ package for small business users - to grab market share in the price sensitive segment of the OMB/SoHo market.

Once the strategic decision has been taken, it is important to push through the programme quickly and effectively with as high a profile as possible, otherwise the strategic advantages of market share grab are quickly lost.

Objective

To create a high impact below the line campaign targeting OMB/SoHo businesses with new proposition of inclusive calls to local numbers and other Vodafone subscribers.

Our approach

We needed a simple arresting visual metaphor that the target audience would easily understand. Initial client research suggested that although target users were familiar with and quite comfortable with mobile technology at its base level, there was quite a major strand of ‘traditionalism’ in the way they worked with customers, partners and suppliers. There was still a strong element of ‘back of the envelope’ and ‘personal exchange of favours’ in the way these people operated.

It was clear that the ‘free calls’ message needed to be at the heart of campaign – this was the compelling benefit available through choosing Vodafone.

We also wanted to tap into the ‘small world’ nature of this part of the market where word of mouth plays a big part in the decisions people make.

The team therefore came up with the visual metaphor of the red envelope linking the modern world of mobile with the traditional world of hand to hand communication.

We proposed this core creative idea across a number of media:

• A large red envelope in store to become synonymous with the campaign
• Collateral for price plans in store for both dealers and Vodafone stores
• Awareness-raising competition to win tickets to UEFA Championship League games (the target audience was male bias blue collar and we also wanted to leverage Vodafone’s sponsorship of the Champions League.

Results

The qualitative feedback we received gave high praise to the creative and execution with initial results believed to be very encouraging.

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