2018 Brand Experience & Activation

BUFFER RAGE

Short List
TitleBUFFER RAGE
BrandVOO
Product/ServiceTELECOM
Category D03. Use of Social & Digital Platforms
Entrant HAPPINESS BRUSSELS Brussels, BELGIUM
Idea Creation HAPPINESS BRUSSELS Brussels, BELGIUM
Media Placement VIZEUM Brussels, BELGIUM
Production VIZEUM Brussels, BELGIUM
Credits
Name Company Position
Christophe Segaert VOO Vice President Consumer Market B2C
Aline Hoffmann VOO Brand & Marketing Communication Director
Delphine Lenel VOO Head of Advertising
Jessica Demeer VOO Project Leader Advertising
Jacques Ohn VOO Media & Budget Manager
Karen Corrigan Happiness / An FCB alliance Executive Creative Management
Geoffrey Hantson Happiness / An FCB alliance Chief Creative Officer
Philippe Fass Happiness / An FCB alliance Creative Director
Morgane Choppinet Happiness / An FCB alliance Concept Provider
Toon Vanpoucke Happiness / An FCB alliance Concept Provider
Pascal Kemajou Happiness / An FCB alliance Group Account Director
Sophie Glotz Happiness / An FCB alliance Account Manager
Laurie Habousha Vizeum Media Placement / development
Isabelle Koelman Happiness / An FCB alliance Strategic Director
Simon Schuurman Happiness / An FCB alliance Motion Designer
Laurent Lejeune Vizeum Media Agency
Sabrina Van Cutsem Vizeum Media Agency
Digiteka Coding

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation ?

Via coding and media collaborations we hacked the actual buffering wheel and turned it into a new advertising medium to confront our target audience with our message ‘Load up to 2 times faster with VOO.’ while they were experiencing the problem. So rather than flatly telling we gave consumers the right experience at the right time.

Background

VOO Telecom is Belgium’s biggest Telecom Challenger. Since the internet has become so much part of our daily life, one of the main battlefields in Telco business and reasons to switch provider is the speed of the internet. VOO Telecom has invested a huge amount of money in modern technology and because of they were able to offer their clients an internet speed that on average can be up to 2 times faster than their biggest competitor, the Telecom market leader. The kpi was very clear: gain market share in the internet market. But apart from share of market, VOO telecom wanted an idea that would also grow their share of heart and clearly position them as THE TelCo challenger in Belgium.

Describe the creative idea

Over 50% of people experience ‘Buffer Rage’ every day, a state of uncontrollable anger, induced by the interruption of online content or streaming video. We all know how it feels to stare at this ever-turning buffering wheel. To promote the fact that VOO telecom has Belgium’s fastest internet, we decided to hijack that symbol of rage and frustration: the actual buffering wheel. So, for the first time ever, whenever somebody is uploading or streaming video and a buffering wheel appears, the VOO message appears too: Load up to 2 times faster with VOO. To do so we wrote some code, set up a collaboration with Belgium’s biggest media partners and added our line of code to the code of their buffering wheel. By doing so we made sure that every time somebody was confronted with the problem, they were also confronted with the solution.

Describe the strategy

Our target audience was very specific: any client of our biggest competitor, the market leader. The reason obviously being that we know that the internet speed of VOO is up to 2 times faster than the internet speed of their biggest competitor. But instead of flatly telling our target audience that VOO internet is way faster, we wanted to confront them with the solution while they were experiencing the problem. We could not specifically target non-clients, but to make sure that VOO clients were not confronted with the ‘faster internet’-message, we made sure that our message only appeared after 1.5 seconds of buffering. Reason being that via data we know that on average VOO clients never have to wait more than 1.5 seconds when buffering. So this way we were 95% sure that only non-VOO clients would be confronted with our message ‘Load up to 2 times faster with VOO.’

Describe the execution

End of October ’18 the ‘buffer rage’ campaign was live. Which means that we delivered the code to hack the buffering wheel of 4 of Belgium’s biggest news sites and streaming services. By collaborating with those 4, our message ‘Load up to 2 times faster with VOO’ reached 70% of our target audience at the exact moment they were getting frustrated by the slow internet speed of our biggest competitor.

List the results

Over 2 million loadings in 5 days. 70% of our target audience reached, exactly when they are most receptive to change providers, being frustrated by our competitors internet speed. Making it the right message at the right moment. Visits to the VOO website tripled in the first 5 days of campaigning.