Vodafone Romania's communication has turned to an approach to realism since 2011, bringing to the public a type of realistic advertising, in which the protagonists are real people who build long-term relationships with both the brand and its audience. "Here we have the differentiating element for the way Vodafone communicates, in the context in which the telecom market approaches advertising in a completely different way", says Laura Barbu (Director, Brand and Marketing Communications, Consumer Business Unit, Vodafone Romania).
Among the characters from the "Romanians have the initiative" platform are Ghita Ciobanul and his sheep (which he left a little in the care of others, while walking with Cabral through Europe), Grandmothers of Sunday (fresh winner of three Bronze Lions at Cannes ) and Raymond, the young man who came to Bucharest to pursue his dream of becoming a musician. You saw them on TV and you wondered if they were real. Another answer:
The context of the development of the "Romanians have the initiative" platform
"Force for Good", these words support our vision, the brand's initiatives and define the context in which we have chosen to stage all our campaigns in recent years.
The role of the Vodafone brand is to support people for a better life with the help of technology.
We set out to democratize the internet, to offer every person the chance to have a smartphone and we put this mission at the service of every Romanian and every business in Romania.
"A smartphone for every Romanian" was the beginning of this mission to democratize technology and the mobile Internet. The opportunity to bring consistency in the way we communicate came from the very desire of people to overcome their personal barriers, to have a better life every day. About them and how technology helps them throughout this journey I chose to we are talking.
Or rather, we let them talk, and we documented the stories. And so the "Romanians have the initiative" platform was born: basically, we delimited a space where we let people speak, we do not speak on their behalf.
For example, Ghita is a real shepherd, with a job passed down from father to son, the kind of mountain man for whom real life is found in simple but valuable things.
Now, two years after I co-opted him in the campaigns, he is as respectful and appreciated as when he was not famous. That's how we met him on the first day, and we came to respect everything he did: for example, the filming days were according to the sheep's schedule.
If Ghita had to take care of them, the whole team would stop working and wait for him. The celebrity could have changed him, but that didn't happen. On the contrary.
Insights
We first launched the "Together We Are Stronger" platform, because I felt that at that time, people needed to feel that they were joining some special communities - if you remember our spot back then, with the few people pushing the car. the neighbor when it was raining heavily outside.
We are talking about 2011-2012, a period in which people began to regain their confidence in the power of the Romanian people to move forward.
We were there with the Digital Library, with the program "A smartphone for every Romanian", with the Digital Florist, the Salvamont application and much more.
Case Study: Vodafone - Digital Library
With "Romanians have the initiative", we went to the next level: people needed to know that they can do important things according to their experience. The next level was translated into the need to present to the user the real benefit of the technology, but from his perspective, not from the company's.
It was much more credible and much more powerful to see how technology can help people have a better life directly from those who have already succeeded or taken a step in that direction.
And that's how we came to this realistic approach, at a time when the telecom market approaches advertising in a completely different way.
Campaign message
We want to convey the message that anyone who has an initiative, a philosophy of life they believe in or a passion that they have not managed to turn into a profession so far, can see their dream come true, with the help of mobile technology, the Internet and all opportunities. that the online environment offers today.
Thus, I let people tell their story: there were Romanians who had set up small businesses, such as Marius Dosinescu with Flori de Lux, Romanians who had the power to see their dream come true and who also evolved due to technology.
We let them talk about them, in their own words. This is also the reason why, in our campaigns, we do not even pretend to film the spots according to the scripts. We do story boards, we do scripts, but when we get to the set, we let people talk and we don't care too much about home.
The campaigns on this platform are about them, about their lives and it would be totally inauthentic for us to force them to say something, when, naturally, it comes to them to say otherwise.
If the character's naturalness is allowed to live, the story is played and written on the set alike, not just behind the laptops. Pre-fabricated lines do not match the actual character.
Basically, this is the recipe behind the "Romanians have the initiative" platform, and the form of the campaigns comes from the documentation of the stories and from the authenticity of the characters. And this is exactly what the public is looking for in the digital world: waiting for conversation and transparency, choosing utility and looking for inspiration.
Target approach
Where our audience is, where they spend most of their time, on all media and all channels - from Facebook, mobile applications, Twitter to online, blogs, TV. We built an ecosystem and chose to be where our target is.
We have been recognized as a Top Social Brand in Romania for 7 years and because, really, we think of integrated campaigns on all these media. And we don't necessarily choose the most beaten path: for example, we don't always go out with the TV first and then we decline on all media.
Let's take the example of now, with Cabral. Cabral posted on Ghita's page that he would like to go to Croatia: "Ghita the Shepherd, let's go and see those places in the Game of Thrones where people filmed. Are you coming with me on a tour of Europe?"
What happened! We chose to document their trip on video and what came out in the end was a spot that is available, on Friday, on TV.
We also look closely at the mobile-delimited area, an area that many advertisers consider secondary. But Romanians spend more and more time on mobile, let's not forget that since 2014, the smartphone is already the second screen in Romania, after TV.
We are looking for relevance in the DIGITAL area and more, we carry the principle of authenticity in this area as well. This is also the reason why the characters in our campaign have distinct, unbranded Facebook pages, where they instantly communicate with their fans.
Ghita currently has almost 600,000 fans, Raymond follows him with 368,000, and all these characters behave and interact like any ordinary person on Facebook.
The results of this strategy that relies on authenticity did not take long to appear: with Ghita, we managed to build business efficiency that broke the barriers of any national and international recognition, up to the Cannes Effectiveness Award, becoming the most awarded creative idea in the entire Vodafone Group.
So far, we have won no less than 14 awards at international or local advertising festivals:
The protagonists of the campaigns
There are no castings, we find them because they managed to impress and do something memorable in the community in which they are. We find out about them through the power of the internet.
I found Ghita, in particular, through Dragos Lumpan (photographer and film-maker), who had met him during the Last Transhumance project.
I found Raymond on YouTube :). Last week, on Thursday, Raymond released live, on the phone, his first song for Romanians abroad - "Closer". Practically, for the first time in Romania, an artist launches a song, on his mobile phone, for each fan, who lives in Spain or Italy.
Any Romanian could sign up for this personalized experience on the artist's Facebook page, leaving him a message with a mobile phone number from Spain or Italy.
Raymond composed the song "Closer" inspired by the story of his parents who went to work in Italy for many years. Raymond is very close to his parents, with whom he communicates daily. The song is also available on YouTube from July 8:
Mediate
Each of our campaigns focused on the story of a real man, which is why we didn't think of TV commercials in the classic sense, but rather conceived a series of mini-documentaries during the advertising break.
Social media was, in most cases, the real soul of the campaign, the place where anyone could connect with our protagonists and their experiences.
The brand in the life of the subjects
We believe that the success of our campaigns, both in terms of the level of engagement and in terms of business, shows that we have managed to prove that the life of any Romanian can be changed for the better through technology.
Ghita is the most eloquent example - a smartphone and the power of Vodafone's 4G network were enough for a lone shepherd on the mountain to become a model of popularity with over half a million friends on Facebook.
He caught the attention of media representatives and became a local celebrity, contributed to a popular music album and even opened a store in the capital.
Sunday's grandmothers managed to overcome a different barrier - that of loneliness through an exchange of "technological experience" with young people who lacked the warmth and taste of food at home.
Raymond is a talented young man who lives his dream of making music and bringing music close to the fans in unique ways.
All these examples show that our mission to help people overcome barriers and improve their lives through technology really works.
Brands have the power to change people's lives. It is exciting to see how this happens in our campaigns and I am glad that the Romanians with the initiative live these stories and choose to share them through our communication platform.
Other executions
result
In just one month since the launch of the first campaign, Ghita was one of the most popular characters on social media, managing to reach the Top 3 celebrities in Romania, on Facebook.
The campaign also had a considerable commercial impact, marking the moment when smartphone sales exceeded feature phone sales.
It has been and is an explosive campaign, which is growing organically, from month to month: ordinary people want to know him, he has dozens, if not hundreds of requests a week from those who want to be hosted in his Guest Room.
The international press - for example BBC News - wrote about him, talking about Ghita as a phenomenon. It was even given as an example regarding the "digitalization of Romania" at the European Commission.
In turn, the "Sunday Grandparents" campaign won two Bronze Lion trophies in the Promo & Activations category and a Bronze Lion in the PR category.
The differentiation of the Vodafone brand, through attributes such as the power and quality of the network, has become even clearer, with the new communication platform "Romanians have the initiative".
And if we were to talk in numbers, we can mention the following. Number of Likes on the personal pages of campaign characters:
The number of Likes, measured daily, on Ghita Ciobanul's Facebook page has increased 10 times since the restart of the campaign. The average engagement rate on Ghita's page is 10 times higher than the average on Facebook
Raymond's "Life as I Want" video has over 1.2 million views, and his Facebook post, at the launch of the video, had an engagement rate of almost 50%, given that the average on Facebook is 1.5%.