Research showed that distrust is the essential trait of Romanians as a people (source: The Psychology of Romanians, Daniel David, 2013). Generations were raised with Hollywood movies, dreaming about an amazing life in democracy, but got used to be disappointed in the context of a country in transition after the communist era. Thus, for Romanians, examples of self-reliant real people, closer to their reality, are more compelling.

Year after year, with every network upgrade, we consistently built Network Superiority by letting everyone test the Vodafone network. Campaign after campaign, our stunts connected people in extreme conditions with the entire country. The most remote shepherd became the 3rd most popular Romanian on Facebook when we equipped him with a smartphone and made his story public (2013). Two lonely grannies opened a pop-up diner at home, becoming the most popular place in town (2014). UNESCO Living Treasures hosted a Live talk-show, and everyone could attend their unique traditions (2016). A mobile game used real time coordinates from the most remote Romanian road to challenge users across the country to a live race against Romania’s top rally pilot (2017). Each campaign became a documentary of a real story. In 2019, the platform moves on by helping a kid with stage fright perform LIVE in front of thousands through holographic projection.

Vodafone stands for the individual and collective progress of Romanians and is committed to empowering better lives through technology. Its mission is to lead the democratization of technology in Romania and bring the power of smartphones and mobile internet to every Romanian, but the hard part is to prove the brand’s impact in people’s lives. Previous experience in the market proved to us that claiming “best network” is not compelling enough when what you’re selling is tangible or visible. Romanians – digitalized or “data virgins” – needed bigger, more relatable proofs of how our technology was serving their needs. We had to either tell the story of our network through real people and stories Romanian could easily relate to or enable them to test the power of the network on their own.

The opportunity we spotted was also a huge creative challenge: drop actors, drop studios and other artificial environments, and talk about the Vodafone network through its real users.

For more than 5 years, with every ‘real-life test’ network campaign that tackled a new level of people digitalization and a new cultural context, we built consistency and local relevance which had a huge positive impact in brand performance.

Each real-life network test reinforced Vodafone’s leadership on Network Performance perception, outperforming results with each campaign:

• #1 NETWORK FOR SPEED & RELIABILITY: +3% constant gap versus competition

• #1 NETWORK FOR COVERAGE: 36% highest peak versus main competitor

• #1 NETWORK FOR INNOVATION: 71.4% highest peak versus main competitor

Vodafone maintained Leadership on Innovative Network perception long term along the years, with a historic peak in the latest campaign.

Each real story network test generated a conversation in the press and inserted Vodafone’s real characters into the local pop culture.