Title	BUFFER RAGE
Brand	VOO
Product/Service	TELECOM
Category	A11. Consumer Services
Entrant	HAPPINESS BRUSSELS Brussels, BELGIUM
Idea Creation	HAPPINESS BRUSSELS Brussels, BELGIUM
Media Placement	VIZEUM Brussels, BELGIUM
Production	VIZEUM Brussels, BELGIUM

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 Media?

With the help of some code and some media collaborations, we managed – for the first time ever – to hack the actual buffering wheels that consumers get to see when uploading or streaming video. And by doing so we turned every buffering into a new advertising medium.

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/insights

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.