Vodafone launches campaign in bid to increase mobile internet use
Vodafone is rolling out a marketing campaign and assortment of new services to implement its strategy to make the mobile internet “accessible to all”.
The £2m campaign, which is aimed at both pay-monthly and pay-as-you-go customers, focuses on four “simple” services that help improve customers’ every day lives. It will run across out of home, retail, radio and digital.
The ads follow Vodafone group chief executive officer Vittorio Colao’s ambition, announced last year, to get more customers using its data services and make use of all the functions their smartphones have to offer.
In the UK, part of chief executive officer Guy Laurence’s “three pillars” for growth is increasing the 80% of UK mobile phone users that have mobile internet access to close to 100%. The other objectives include changing Britain’s companies’ working culture and “giving something back”, which is implemented through Vodafone’s Text Giving programme, amongst other initiatives.
Almost half of the UK population owns a smartphone, with smart devices accounting for just under 70% of mobile sales in the 12 weeks to 2 October, according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
Smartphones and data services are lucrative products for mobile operators, as they provide higher margins than more traditional feature phones and voice plans. Rival mobile operator Three revealed in a blog post earlier this week that 97% of all its network use is now data.
Vodafone’s campaign also coincides with the launch of Vodafone UK’s “Tech Team” – specially trained staff available to speak to online, in-store and on the phone, that are tasked with helping customers get the most from their devices. Tech Team emulates rival O2’s specialist online and in-store customer service team “O2 Gurus”.
The four service elements featuring in the UK ad campaign are: Vodafone’s unlimited data offer for the first three months on new contract plans; its service that transfers customers’ contacts and media on to their new phones; the Buyback scheme that gives customers the opportunity to trade in their old phones; and Sure Signal, that lets customers boost the mobile signal in their homes.
The creative for the campaign, which carries the strapline “Another small thing that can mean the world”, was the first produced by Vodafone UK’s newly appointed agency RKCR.
