Agency/Media Company: Media Experts
Client: Clearnet
Brand: Clearnet PCS
Team: Mark Sherman; Cynthia Fleming; Lisa Di Marco
Timing: Spring 1999
Best Use of Out-of-Home: Second Runner-up (tie)
The Background
Our objective was to launch a national advertising campaign for Clearnet, a Canadian wireless communications company. The campaign included television, out-of-home and newspaper. This submission focuses on the out-of-home portion of the campaign.
The key media challenge was to magnify Clearnet’s advertising investment, which was small compared to that of the competition. Our job was to make it seem larger by using a media strategy that would engage the consumer in Clearnet’s story.
The Plan
Incorporating outdoor into the plan gave us the opportunity to skew impressions toward mobile consumers, at times when they might actually be using a wireless device. It allowed us also to intercept consumers while they were en route to purchasing a new device at retail. And it would help support and stretch the awareness generated by the TV campaign.
Media Experts and TAXI Advertising & Design worked in tandem to develop a campaign that had clear synergies across all the media. Out-of-home, in particular, was key to our efforts to magnify the client’s advertising investment.
Our idea was to break through the clutter by using outdoor media to tell a story. The approach, which we dubbed ‘Clearnet Clusters,’ was designed to maximize visibility and engage the consumer in a Barbasol-style outdoor experience, whereby a group of related boards are positioned in close proximity to one another.
TAXI produced three complementary pieces of creative, incorporating the now-familiar image of a red-eyed tree frog. The first (‘Why have a home phone?’) presented the situation, showing the frog in a jar. The second (‘Unlimited evening & weekend calling.’) offered the solution, showing the same frog leaping from the jar. And the third (‘The future is friendly.’) showed our amphibian friend smiling invitingly from behind a leaf.
Without precise placement, the ‘Clearnet Cluster’ concept would not have worked. The Media Experts team spent more than 300 hours in ‘drives,’ handpicking each and every cluster across the country, and then verifying visually that the boards were posted correctly.
Six specific cluster types were identified, located in each market, and then bought and maintained. The cluster variations included sets of two or three poster units, placed side-by-side or in driving sequence, as well as tri-vision executions employing all three pieces of creative.
The Results
The synergy between the TV, out-of-home and newspaper worked extremely well. Consumer awareness of Clearnet PCS reached its highest level since the brand entered the wireless market – and Clearnet hit the threshold of 500,000 subscribers ahead of its key competition.
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