Telstra has struggled with brand love in regional areas for a very long time. These areas rely heavily on technology to stay connected and the digital infrastructure hasn’t improved in line with the rest of the country. The result is a fairly hostile audience who feels hard done by. Telstra’s New Satellite Home Internet powered by Starlink marked the first time state-of-the-art technology has come to regional Australia before the more populated metro areas, so the brief was to make regional Australia feel special. This informed how we created all of the comms, starting with outdoor that felt fun and emotive rather than dated and rational. The objectives were to convert 8.6k existing and new Telstra customers to this new product, and improve brand trust/likeability in these regional areas.

The campaign has only just gone live so measuring impact is difficult. To date sales are 2.5x target.

1. Driving reappraisal: Telstra is known by regional customers, as ‘corporate’ and ‘impersonal’. The campaign aims to shift this perception to a brand known for ‘innovation’ and ‘forward thinking’. Regional outdoor advertising is notoriously bland and an afterthought for most brands. Our creative approach disrupts this medium in a way that is genuinely intriguing for our audience and reflective of this perception shift.

2. Conversion: There is power in getting the local community talking. This is particularly true for regional areas where small populations and limited gathering spots create higher network effects. We know that the product itself is world-leading in performance and once customers use it, they will be happy to endorse it, but we need to give them the prompt to have this conversation. Our creative acts as that prompt.