New 3 ads aim to make brand more intelligible

3 is overhauling its advertising strategy to help the public better understand the brand following the appointment of Euro RSCG to handle its £39m advertising account last week.

The Havas-owned agency was awarded the business last Friday after a pitch against Hurrell & Dawson and Glue. WCRS has handled the company’s advertising for the past three years, producing a series of quirky campaigns featuring singing cherries and dancing jellyfish.

Speaking to Marketing Week, 3’s new marketing director John Penberthy-Smith, who replaced Graeme Oxby in January, says: “We’ve got a really exciting brand but maybe in the past it has had more style than substance. WCRS had a good run under a certain creative strategy and produced some stunning creative work but when you look at some of the advertising it doesn’t fully connect with what the brand is about.

“3 is a very real, simple, down-to-earth brand but I’m not quite sure that has always come through. We want work that helps people understand what 3 is about.”

Meanwhile, Penberthy-Smith has restructured the company’s marketing department, creating a new senior marketing team that will report directly to him.

He has moved Hutchison marketer Fergal Walker to the new role of director of handsets and brought Stephen Ford in from 3 Australia as director of customer propositions. Penberthy-Smith is also looking for a director of product management, a director of integrated communications and a director of base management.

He says: “Graeme [Oxby] had a very strong product team. The structure I’m building will drive marketing forward because marketing should drive sales.”