We’ve been writing quite a lot about Vodafone in the past months. Mainly because the mobile company seems to be in some sort of identity crises. Every time we see a Vodafone advertisement it communicates in a different way, with a different style and seems to be targeted at a different group of consumers. It started with the mutated guinea pigs, then they were giving away phones and other stuff, then you had to search for them (off and online) and the previous promotion asked us: ‘Who wants to be a prepaid millionaire?’. This time it’s not about your knowledge, but about your luck. That is, if we go by the campaign proposition: ‘Lucky Calls’. The concept is simple: you just call your favourite phone and ‘Anouk’ picks it up by moving through the screen in different ways. When you can answer a really simple question, you might win the phone. Not until you’ve submitted your personal data though – so Vodafone can add you to their database. Fortunately digital agency Super Heroes tried to make it all as digestible as possible.

Recently Achtung! created quite an unusual campaign to communicate Vodafone’s fiber internet; in the small town of Roggel (Limburg) a real race track was laid out around the center, where celebrity Jenson Button raced his Formula 1 car against the locals – who were racing in a simulator. The entire town was involved and a documentary was made of the event. The event was to bring Vodafone and its proposition (high speed internet) as close as possible to the user. To learn more about the story behind this campaign we asked Dick Buschman, MD and Head of Strategy of Achtung!, a few questions.

What did the initial Vodafone briefing say?
Village-by-village rollout of fiber internet throughout the Netherlands is mainly dictated by small local players. For a big international brand as Vodafone it is not easy to enter this market. The question was: how do we get close to our new potential clients? As an international brand, Vodafone is used to think big and push the message, but for this product they could not get away with that. So our mission was to get close to the local community, activate them, and win their sympathy.

How was the race set up?
We chose Roggel, because it is one of the smaller towns in the Netherlands with only 4000 inhabitants. To get them involved we gave all of them a chance to race against Button. We made a selection by asking local clubs (football, orchestra, etc.) to organize speed contests. 10 of them did. Out of the 10 winners, 3 eventually went through to the Formula 1 simulator. The simulator, racing against Button’s physical car, showed an exact 3D copy of the streets.

Logistically it sounds like a bit of a nightmare
It proved difficult, yes, but we also had a lot of fun. A smart move was involving the mayor, who organized ‘hearings’ and actively asked the inhabitants’ participation – I think he saw it as a good PR opportunity for his town. But, yes, it did require a huge team to pull it all off. We started with concepting 6 weeks prior to the race. As the idea involved the participation of the local community, a dedicated team of 6 people worked from Roggel. But the total team was much bigger. A team of Vodafone did the overall planning and coordination. 328 Stories lived in Roggel for almost 5 weeks to make the documentary. Then there was DNA Events, who prepared the actual race, with all the logistics. And, finally, a team of RTL was involved. The total crew was over 60 people.

This is the documentary directed by Andreas Pasvantis (328 Stories)

O.k., so you got Roggel involved. How about the rest of the Netherlands?
We published small teasing videos of the local preparing activities on the dedicated website (www.grandprixvanroggel.nl) and Facebook page. Apart from that we were able to make a deal with sports channel RTL 7, who broadcasted the race live on national television. Two weeks later the documentary was released online and, again, on TV.

How did the locals react to this brand circus?
The preparations, to select the 3 local heroes, and the physical Grand Prix really connected the town – and I don’t mean that in Vodafone’s language. What I mean is that the entire town was truly involved and excited about the race; we still receive letters and pictures that show true enthusiasm. That’s how Vodafone instantly became a local friend. And that’s not easy in a small a town, especially when you’re a global brand like Vodafone. But it worked. Vodafone has won a serious market position in Roggel.

I can imagine that. How were the results nationally?
Well, as said, we reached the rest of the Netherlands through online and TV. Both the Grand Prix and documentary reached 2.4 million people on national television. The videos and trailers posted on our website and Facebook before, during and after the event spread through weblogs and reached over 250.000 unique viewers. And the footage that was spread clearly communicates Vodafone’s local touch.

Which town is next to be put upside down?
I am not sure whether this will get a sequel. But we just released a new app for Vodafone, called Appstein; it searches for the Einstein of apps. The campaign targets prepaid callers and tests their knowledge about smartphone apps – normally they do not use apps a lot, since most prepaid phones are not exactly ‘smart’.

We don’t like brands telling complicated stories – complicated is usually born out of a bad idea. The exception to the rule, though, is complicated as a concept in itself. When for example complicated is an excuse to create something that should go viral, it might just work. Take this nicely executed online film “No Facebook without the Dutch” for the Dutch Maritime (‘Scheepvaart’) Museum that links the rich Dutch maritime history with Mark Zuckerberg to announce the new museum’s Facebook fan page. Clearly not watertight, but easily enjoyable enough to forward online. Created by One Big Agency, CCCP, and Super Heroes.

Roggel is a rustic town with only 4100 inhabitants. And this short film, directed by Andreas Pasvantis (328 Stories), wonders whether they are ready for Vodafone’s speed. Normally, you would relate this question to the speed of Vodafone’s network, but when you ask Achtung! to come up with something entertaining, you end up measuring the speed of a race car. Why? First of all, because Vodafone sponsors the McLaren team and secondly because the speed of a race car is easier to comprehend for the average consumer than the speed of a mobile network – we’d guess. So they asked Jens Button to battle against the fastest person of Roggel. A race car versus a race simulator. And to find the fastest person of Roggel, Achtung! set up some small competitions with a very local feel to subtly illustrate how Vodafone’s speed can even be experienced in the country. The Grand Prix of Roggel was ‘aired’ yesterday on RTL’s Grand Prix microsite, which today heralds “Jens Button beaten in the Grand Prix of Roggel”. You can say about it what you like, but original it is.

Just like the previous Vodafone commercial – also made by THEY – about the €2-abroad-deal (the one in the snow), this ad won’t win any prizes in Cannes – though Wouter Stoter directed a fairly sexy commercial. But speaking of Cannes; some of us used Vodafone’s €2/day-deal there and it was great. Especially when comparing it to T-Mobile; they also charges €2, only then per Mb, which now feels like going back to the Middle Ages. We’re not sure whether there’s any reception at Blue Cove (wherever it is, cause we couldn’t find it on TripAdvisor), but this commercial would definitely make us consider a switch – after all, T-Mobile even in Holland doesn’t have proper reception. So what can we learn from this; you don’t need award winning work to advertise a good product. Which is more or less the opposite of: award winning work will make a bad product fail faster – but we knew that one since Bill Bernbach was still alive.

Write the future did what most of us expected, it won big last night at the Dutch Art Director’s Club (ADCN) Awards: the Standing bulb (read: Grand Prix) and three golden bulbs (Integrated, Film, and Print/Magazine). Massive Music also won an award for the music in this commercial. Overall, TBWA\Neboko won most awards, taking home 2 golden (in Film for Pearle and in Print for Heineken’s Social Networks) and 4 silver bulbs. Live Interactive billboard (n=5) won gold in Outdoor. Bavaria’s DutchDress (Selmore) – causing such a big stir at the World Championship football last summer – also received a very deserved golden bulb in Activation. Christian Borstlap’s posters for the overview exhibition of Dutch advertising classics won gold in Graphic Design. In Interactive there was no gold. This could mean that digital creatives are still mostly tech driven, rather than aiming for the big idea. It could also mean that the ‘traditional’ creatives (the largest part of the Jury) are not able to fully appreciate digital innovations. Or it might be a bit of both. In any case, there were three silver bulbs in Interactive for Philips ‘Wake up the town‘ (Tribal DDB), Live Interactive Billboard (see above – a big digital idea, created by a ‘traditional’ agency), and Vodafone’s Madame TreSesti (Achtung!). Our very favourite film ‘Drama Queen‘ for the Young Director Award (TBWA Helsinki, directed by Rogier Hesp) got a bulb in the category Young Directors, but unfortunately not gold.