“A lot of people tend to think about SOHO owners as modern hippies who made a brave decision to become self-employed and take step on the path of self-realization. This is what you see in the movies and this perception is also reinforced by ads. Reality, however, is not that”, said Péter Civin, Telenor’s Brand and Marketing Communications Director. “Running a SOHO business sometimes s…s. Why can’t you be honest about this or at least refer to it, beeped out?”
This has been Telenor’s first 360-degree campaign for SOHO customers for a long time. There are several reasons why it was not made before. “On the one hand, we wanted to give people time to get used to our new brand identity launched last year so that we can build on it also when communicating with business customers. On the other hand, we wanted to present to SOHO customers an innovative product”, said Péter Civin.
Flexible tariff change, aligned commitment periods, combined handset discounts: the innovations of Telenor MyBusiness Flexi tariff packages enable SOHO customers to better tailor their subscriptions to their business needs. “Flexibility is the most important element of our communication, partly because this is one of the most important assets of the new tariffs, and also because we see that flexibility is essential for businesses, many times thanks to the rigidity of large corporations like us. And also, large companies more and more try to work as SOHOs, more flexibly e.g. by experiment with working in tribes or using service design. This is why we say in our TV ad ‘Thanks that we can learn from you”, he added.
“Developing the campaign, the greatest challenge was to adapt the honest and sometimes provocative tone of our consumer communication to the B2B landscape. The solution was developed jointly by guts&brainsDDB (previously called DDB Sofia) and Artificial Group. Based on the initial response, the offer seems to be relevant for our SOHO customers, while the tone and the visuals are also in line with our consumer campaign. We strive for consistency not only to facilitate brand recognition. We bravely admit that we are this type of brand both in the consumer and in the business segments. We believe that credibility starts with self-identity”, said Tímea Cséky, head of the communication team responsible for the campaign.
The television campaign will start with a 45-second spot followed by its different versions. We deliberately refrained from showing suit-clad entrepreneurs in the film and used characters better reflecting reality. “We wanted to show that in addition to good-looking carpenters in their 30s, there are lots of female entrepreneurs and life doesn’t stop at 40 either,” added Tímea Cséky.