Mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Amaysim has put its challenger brand mentality front and centre in launching its 4G network, with a series of content videos starring Olympian Steven Bradbury.
Bradbury is best known for wining a gold medal in the 2002 Winter Olympics after his front running competitors crashed and burned short of the finish line.
Speaking to AdNews, Amaysim director of marketing Andrew Balint and head of corporate affairs and communications Gerard Mansour, said having Bradbury as its brand ambassador highlights to the market the “wait to pounce” approach it has taken with moving into the 4G space.
“We announced in December to our customer base that we were going to be launching our 4G plans in Easter this year and the overwhelming response we got was 'finally',” Mansour said.
“We know very clearly that we're not the first to market and we're not going to pretend that we are.”
“The industry is known for cookie cutter plans where there is not much difference between them so we decided to watch, sit back, see what the competition was doing and what customers wanted, and then create plans that made a difference.”
As part of the launch, Bradbury, led by Amaysim's PR agency Hausman, has created a serries of content videos showcasing what it means to “do a Bradbury” when it comes to flirting, winning the battle for a car park or getting a drink at the pub.
The videos will be distributed through its online and social channels and will feed into a larger marketing campaign to be launched on Sunday.
Balint said the broader campaign will pick up on this idea of Amaysim, as as challenger brand in the market “doing things a bit differently”.
“From a creative perspective we're trying not to take ourselves too seriously and have a fun approach to how we do marketing,” Balint said.
“Following off from where we're going with Steven Bradbury, we're doing things a bit differently so we have a TVC with a twist.”
“From a creative perspective we're trying not to take ourselves too seriously and have a fun approach to how we do marketing,” Balint said.
“Following off from where we're going with Steven Bradbury, we're doing things a bit differently so we have a TVC with a twist.”
“We're taking a 'Shawshank Redemption' theme where our hero is actually freeing himself from the oppressive chains of mobile phone contracts.”
The broader campaign will also showcase Amaysim “doing things differently” in approach too, with the telco building on the idea of “always on marketing” by bringing that approach to all of its channels.
“We don't have bottomless pit of cash which for the other telcos can seem like a bit of a drug that feeds their campaign addition,” Balint said.
“Sometimes they burst into these huge bursts of activity and what inevitably follows that high is a bit of a low. What we're doing is a sustainable, effective presence in market all year round; so following the principle of always on but with all of our channels.”
The marketing mix for Amaysim spans brand TV, direct response TV (DRTV), online display, online channels and OOH.
But Balint said it's able to use “always on” in all of those channels by ensuring it uses just the right amount of exposures when it comes to brand TV, but with minimal frequency and then employing a robust conversion layer in online and DRTV. It also uses attribution modelling from its media agency – PHD- to ensure its is getting the most out of its media dollars.
The attribution modelling has allowed the brand to see the importance of social in terms of a first or second exposure.
“It's a very powerful channel when it gets to first or second exposure, but if you’re talking about last click, which is sort of the old world thing, it doesn’t figure so strongly,” Balint said.
“So what is has allowed us to do is to decide that we should put more money into social and a little bit less in channels such as search.”
Going forward, Balint said the plan is to keep its communications “stripped back and simple.”
“We're going to spend a little bit more than last year on marketing but it's going to be much more targeted,” he added.
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