Telecom is a category with fierce competition. All operators try everything to transfer subscribers from each other. A top method is to communicate the network’s power and reliability (Millward Brown Vodafone Brand Values Survey, Factors Determining Subscribers’ Choice of Operator 2016, 2017). In 2016, with the introduction of the 4G technology, the rules of the game changed and 4G performance became the new defining factor in the category. The most practical advantage of 4G was fast Internet (4G Scouting for Innovative Ideas, TNS, September 2015, Base:35). Both Vodafone’s competitors were driven for speed, as both of them had acquired high speed bands in the 4G tender. However Vodafone had not been able to acquire high speed bands in the tender, and would not be able to compete about speed with its current infrastructure. However thanks to its infrastructure investments and the SingleRAN technology which differentiated it from its competitors, Vodafone had a band where it could provide the widest 4G coverage. Therefore it adopted a different approach, and decided to base its communication strategy on the “widest 4G coverage.”

Our communications underlining the “widest 4G coverage” were inspired by the insight that people did not expect their phones or 4G to have coverage in remote places. However although they did not expect it, they felt safe when they noticed that there was “connection.” We tried to approach this from a different perspective. Having coverage in an unexpected place would make one feel safe, but was it always a good thing? A phone ringing at the top of the mountain to give the news of the birth of a niece could be fine, but what if it rings at “that” moment when you are about to propose to your lover in a camp at the top of a mountain? So far all communications had focused on the beauty of being accessible at all times, and no brand had talked about the negative moments. Therefore, we decided to apologize for making our subscribers accessible even in those once-in-a-lifetime moments and causing them to miss those. Only a bold operator with a strong confidence in its infrastructure could pull it off.

Following the campaign that was started with our initial print ads, the number of subscribers transferring their numbers from Turkcell to Vodafone increased by 17%, and those transferring from Türk Telekom to Vodafone by 7.7% (Vodafone Internal Reports average of September, October, November 2017, average of December, January, February 2018). Through the campaign, we increased the “My next operator of choice will be Vodafone” score, measured in the GfK Individual Consumer Brand Tracking Report, in non-Vodafone subscribers by 9 points and became the leader in front of Turkcell for the first time since 2014. (November 2017 vs January 2018). Also, we achieved an increase of 9 points in “Is the leader in 4G” score and for the first time became the leader in category (GfK Individual Consumer Brand Tracking Report, November 2017 vs January 2018).