At Vodafone, we have a certain mindset regarding our customers. As much as we appreciate their business, being business partners is never enough; we want to become friends. We knew that becoming friends takes more than excellent service quality. We needed something that would truly inspire warm feelings towards us. So we began to brainstorm on the dynamics of a friendship. What is friendship? Its favors. Sharing. Sometimes, even for no apparent reason, giving stuff that radiates happiness. Could a single approach be equally appealing to both genders? The answer, much to the chagrin of our financial department, was a clear “no.” So, we’d be bonding separately with Johns and Janes. This case focuses on Johns.

In Turkey, most men love football religiously. They think football, breathe football and when they come together, it is all they talk about. What if we gifted them all the things that could be done with football? This is how we set out to establish a blog that would give them the maximum content for minimum time and effort. Creating the app we named “My Life is Football”, we brought together the best football bloggers of Turkey, and together, they started creating the hottest content on football.

Remembering our original mission was creating bonds instead of generating revenue, we placed the app out there for free, and made the content available to users of all service providers, including those of our competitors’.

The immediate feedback was massive. Our app, within one week of its release, topped the most downloaded apps list. Nearing 1 year, our app generated 4.5 million impressions, and got downloaded for a total of 218.918 times. Well, the results pointed to a success. But what we really feel good about is being able to give them something they loved, because friendship goes beyond numbers...

This is how we set out to establish a blog that would give them the maximum content for minimum time and effort. Creating the app we named “My Life is Football”, we brought together the best football bloggers of Turkey. together, they started creating the hottest content on football.

Remembering our original mission was creating bonds instead of generating revenue, we placed the app out there for free, and made the content available to users of all service providers, including those of our competitors’.

The immediate feedback was massive. Our app, within one week of its release, topped the most downloaded apps list. Nearing 1 year, our blog generated 4.5 million impressions, and got downloaded for a total of 218.918 times. But what we really feel good about is being able to give them something they loved.