Shaw Communications has launched a new wireless service and undergone a brand refresh to reward and retain Western Canadian clientele in a saturated telecommunications market.

Available in Alberta and B.C. and launched last Thursday, Shaw Mobile’s key differentiator is bolstering its service with its internet infrastructure, allowing customers to utilize both WiFi at home and on-the-go hotspots throughout Western Canada.

The brand also refreshed its platform, entitled “Brighter Together,” along with a new visual identity – which uses fibre imagery as a symbol of connectivity and brightness. It also expands the brand’s colour palette from blue, to now incorporating some light purple.

The 60-second “Brighter Together” brand platform spot – created by Rethink – shows how “being connected matters more than ever right now,” that “everyone should have access to gig fast internet, [and] be connected no matter where you are,” and that “internet should come together with mobile.” The spot positions Shaw Mobile as a “bright idea” and solution for the needs of Canadians in today’s world.

The company says the new branding is primarily focused on the wireless part of its business for now, but over time will be used across all of Shaw’s products and segments.

Paul McAleese, president of Shaw, says the company wanted to tap into three qualities through the new brand platform: human connection, optimism and value.

“That’s been something that I think every Canadian has had to reflect upon in their quiet moments in the last four or five months,” he says. “It has just changed the way we interact with each other and we wanted to reflect those happier moments and bring some of that optimism into advertising.”

McAleese says the company has “long considered” launching a wireless product like Shaw Mobile, a “converged product” that utilizes its internet and wireless assets together to provide better service and value to customers. Shaw first bought into the wireless category in late 2015, when it agreed to acquire Wind Mobile, rebranded to Freedom Mobile a year later.

While prepaid Freedom Mobile enjoys good penetration in Ontario, postpaid Shaw Mobile is tailored specifically to Western Canada, where the company is looking to make its presence felt in the wireless category by utilizing its extensive, established interest presence.

McAleese says Western Canada is a “highly competitive” duopoly for internet provision – essentially, a 50-50 split in residential internet between Shaw and Telus. Given that there is not a lot of growth opportunity for new internet subscribers, wireless is not only a way to gain new customers, but reward existing ones. In addition to making mobile usage less expensive for those that can stay connected to Shaw’s internet network, the brand offers an unlimited data plan starting at $45 per month for existing Shaw customers, significantly less expensive than those offered by other major carriers (value is another major pillar of the launch campaign, with McAleese saying people are scrutinizing their household expenses more than ever over the last few months).

“The driver is to make sure that we really lock in and reward those people, in that mature category, so that they’re not running back and forth between the two carriers,” McAleese says. “We want to give them every reason to simply stay put and not not think about their decision for internet.”

The Shaw Mobile campaign features 30- and 60-second cuts in market on TV. The campaign also has paid digital and OOH elements. Corus Media handled the media buy.