Verizon
Regional Advertising Campaign Goes National
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Category: B2C
Type: Brand Marketing, Acquisition, Retention
Channel: TV, Print, Digital, Email, Direct Mail
Industry: Technology
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Challenge:
In late 2007, our Verizon client challenged us to come up with an out-of-the-box concept for an ad campaign. With the advent of number portability in 2003, carriers were able to track where customers were switching. In the South, Verizon was dramatically losing market share to AT&T. This corresponded to AT&T's recent exclusive contract for the iPhone. Verizon’s South area President wanted a campaign that would help reverse the trend.
Solution:
We knew that Verizon was at a big disadvantage due to AT&T ‘s equipment so we chose to focus on network quality. Test Man’s “Can You Hear Me Now?” iconic phrase was highly successful when it first launched in 2002, however there was a strong public perception in 2007 that the other carriers had caught up with Verizon in terms of coverage and signal quality. AT&T had recently re-branded itself from Cingular and had been using a similar superior network claim of “More Bars in More Places.”
Verizon subscribed to a technical service that measured coverage and network quality across competitors. The internal maps were quite visually striking in demonstrating Verizon’s clear competitive advantage. We developed a concept around using the maps to visually show Verizon’s superior coverage vs. AT&T (later expanded to Sprint and T-Mobile depending on the market).
Result:
The campaign started out as a regional direct mail and email campaign (acquisition and retention) that was extremely well received by Verizon’s South area executive team. Results showed a substantial lift in new activations as well as contract renewals. The campaign was then further expanded to include print ads which ran in major dailies throughout the South.
Verizon’s corporate headquarters picked up the regional campaign and we rolled out a national program. McCann adapted the concept for TV and the campaign ran for two years through 2009. The famous tagline “There’s a map for that” was added in 2009 as a direct spoof of Apple’s “There’s an app for that” advertising for AT&T’s exclusive iPhone. State maps and regional maps were provided online and in retail stores so customers could compare coverage areas.
The campaign went viral and received national coverage across major media outlets. AT&T ended up suing Verizon at the end of 2009 to stop the campaign as they claimed Verizon’s network coverage maps were misleading. Despite being found innocent of misleading advertising, Verizon decided to retire the campaign as it had run its course and effectively changed consumer perceptions. Six months later AT&T’s exclusive iPhone agreement lapsed and Verizon was able to launch its own version. The campaign was widely credited as having help saved Verizon from losing market share to AT&T.
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