Despite being Australia’s best network, Telstra has a poor brand image. They needed to show Australians that Telstra’s commitment was not only to functionally connect Australians but to facilitate richer, meaningful connections too.

Telstra maintains a network of over 15,000 free public phone booths. One of their main purposes is for emergency calls, with over 200,000 placed from them each year.    

Younger Australians, who have grown-up with smartphones do not know how to find and use these public phones.

 Brief:  

Drive brand love amongst caregivers whilst engaging and educating a new generation of Aussies on how to find, use, and communicate using Telstra’s public phone network, so they will know how to do so in an emergency.

Objectives:  

Educate young Aussies about Telstra’s Payphone Network by activating their Christmas campaign, and create an emotional connection between all Australians and the national carrier at Christmas time.

We created an AI Santa who provided unique, one-to-one experiences for Australian kids, available for free, exclusively via Telstra’s public phones.

This was a pioneering payphone-driven idea that invited young Australians to call Santa at his north pole workshop from the payphone on their own street. Together with their parents, young Australians could enjoy a more intimate Santa experience through a natural ‘question-response’ payphone conversation enabled by generative AI. Young Australians got to discuss their Christmas wish list, while loitering parents eagerly eavesdropped. Our integrated media and call experience drove nation-wide calls to Santa, but also created a new Australian Christmas ritual for generations to come.

The audience was twofold:

1. Caregivers

2. Young Australians aged 5-9 (Kids in “The Santa” Years)

We knew the opportunity to ‘speak’ to Santa would be hard to resist for children, but the experience had to be genuinely interactive, immersive and “real-feeling” to gain word-of-mouth from parents and exposure from the broader media, sustain interaction over the six week activation period and ultimately drive brand love.

Telstra had an underutilised brand asset in its public phones as no other telecommunication company in Australia provided this infrastructure. While Telstra made all its payphones free the year prior, no one saw the need to use them, unless stranded without a mobile phone. There was a unique opportunity to create an emotional connection by reimagining these phones.

The approach was to create an interactive AI Santa experience on Telstra’s public phones, and use word-of-mouth, and supporting comms to push Australians to try it.

Telstra’s AI Santa could be called exclusively through Telstra’s public phones by calling #46 46 46 (#HO HO HO). This ‘Santa’ could have thousands of individualized conversations at the same time, thanks to the combination of generative AI, a large language model, and Google Dialogueflow technology.

‘Santa’ would learn callers’ names, present requests and more. It was tailored to interact with younger, and neurodiverse voices.

'Santa’ could respond to all queries, as generative AI created bespoke conversations, but the system could identify inappropriate prompts and steer dialogue accordingly to ensure the experience remained safe.

Telstra have a network of over 15,000 phones, each with its own media space, making it one of the largest, untapped direct response media environments in Australia. The activation ran 24 hours a day from 16 November 2023 until 24 December 2023, on Telstra’s entire network of public phones.

The audience was twofold:  

1. Caregivers  

2. Young Australians aged 5-9 (Kids in “The Santa” Years)  

 We knew the opportunity to ‘speak’ to Santa would be hard to resist for children, but the experience had to be genuinely interactive, immersive and “real-feeling” to gain word-of-mouth from parents and exposure from the broader media, sustain interaction over the six week activation period and ultimately drive brand love. 

We utilised the media space on these phone boxes to tell people they were the ho-ho-hotline. Telstra’s AI Santa went live alongside TV and Cinema placements, where a little girl calls Santa to help return a runaway reindeer. More instructional films provided more information on how to call Santa, while influencers with children aged 5-9 were engaged to share their own “Free Calls to Santa” stories. A PR push, where the “North Pole Hotline” was connected, gained national media.