Yoda to help Vodafone push smartphone services
Vodafone has enlisted the help of Star Wars character Yoda to push its strategy to make the mobile internet “accessible to all”; the operator’s biggest marketing campaign since its “Freebees” activity last year.
The multi-million pound campaign aims to help the company achieve the ambition set out by Vodafone group chief executive Vittorio Coloa in 2010 to get almost all of its consumers using its data services and every function of their smartphones.
The above the line activity will focus on the services offered around smartphones and data usage, such as the recent launch of its specially trained “Tech Team”, its trial offer that gives consumers access to three months of unlimited data and “Sure Signal”, that lets customers boost mobile signal in their homes.
More mobile-internet focused service propositions are also set to launch in the coming months as the operator builds on the long-term strategy.
Last year, Vodafone’s UK chief executive officer Guy Laurence said one of his key “pillars” for growing the company is to increase the 80% of UK mobile phone users that have the mobile internet to close to 100%.
The activity, still backed with the strapline “Power to You” to match other brand campaigns, will mark the first time Vodafone has highlighted its mobile internet-centric strategy on television. It is also the first time Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalf/Y&R has produced a television campaign for Vodafone since being appointed by the operator in August.
Director of brand marketing Danielle Crook says Vodafone chose Yoda as a brand ambassador because internal research found he appeals across age, genders and that he embodies “wisdom” and “warmth”.
“Part of the reason we wanted to use Yoda is to help us be a bit more playful in the way that we come across; in the past we hadn’t pushed that, but started doing so with Freebees,” she adds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6obEMR_aRkA
