A new telco brand is to conquer the discount market. The challenge: It lacks pretty much all the requirements that make the competition successful. No brick-and-mortar presence, no hotline sales force, no plan options, no price promotions. Just one flat that can be signed up for and managed entirely via app. Oh, and almost forgotten: The brand has 0,2% of the telco market's annual ad spend to make it fly.

Still, we wanted to disrupt the market with an approach that is all about a seamless experience for the customer. We wanted to prove that you don’t need multi-million budgets when you offer simplicity instead of frictions and functionality instead of fancy promotion deals. Our aim was to approach things differently and revolutionize the customer journey in the German telco market.

How do you choose and manage a mobile phone tariff?

- Compare plans online

- Visit brick and mortar stores

- Call a hotline

- Optimize your plan

- Get extra fancy promotion deals

- Quit your plan three months before contract extension

We changed that.

By letting customers just Download an app, using PayPal for payment, quit whenever you they feel like it.

What else? Actually, our entire approach was quite “frank”.

So, we made this the brand name (Okay, “fraenk” so the Germans know, how to pronounce it.).

We made “fraenk” a one-word-brand-identity – a true disruption with the approach to reduce everything to pure functionality.

This is an actual extract from our brand story:

“Yes, we want to sell you something.

No, it will not change your life.

Yes, 4 GB and Allnet Flat purely digital via app.

No, no "everything you always wanted" promises.

No annoying hotline calls or tariff extras.

Why? Because most people just don't need it.

They just want our product to work.”

We changed the customer journey of an entire industry. Can mobile phone tariffs get an impulse-purchase? Turns out they can.

We shortened the customer journeys extremely and tapped into word of mouth and influencer marketing to spread the message.

We enabled users to benefit from recommending us. How? We did the opposite of all our competitors. Instead of rewarding people for quitting their contract - by offering them better conditions, we rewarded them with a free month for recommending us.

We aired ads where and when people could directly interact with our offer: On their way to work and on the way home. In trains and busses, analog and digital.

We wanted to generate learnings about how the eSIM will change the industry.

We wanted to understand how to market a mobile phone tariff without spending Millions. We wanted to conquer the discount market segment by getting rid of everything which is not needed for a good mobile plan.

Well, within the first eight months after launch, fraenk generated more sales than two key competitor brands in 12 months, together.

After our fist brand campaign, brand search queries increased by 500%. One in 10 users came to the website through OOH advertising. Ad recall on Spotify was +40%. And yes, "true simplicity" also made sales: the install-to-order ratio was 15% above the industry average and only 5% of customers would not recommend fraenk to friends.