Create reappraisal of the Yell brand, reposition Yell as relevant for today whilst aiming to create emotional engagement with the brand. We wanted to revive the brand’s latent purpose of connecting the right people with the right local businesses and show how Yell does this in a variety of new ways through recent product developments. The ultimate goal was to increase usage of Yell products and services by attracting more committed users.

The creative strategic solution was to reprise JR Hartley for a modern audience and use music to encourage them to engage with the brand in a modern way. The key was to create an authentic music track that our audience could relate to – we did this with ‘Pulse & Thunder’. We commissioned a dance music producer who produced tracks for big clubs in the 1990s, and used equipment from the period to make sure the sound was authentic and not over produced. The campaign ran on TV, with digital channels being used to deepen the backstory around our DJ and the track. PR, print and digital media delivered a competition element involving a nationwide hunt for copies of Pulse & Thunder in independent music stores. Specialist music promoters were engaged to generate credible interest in the track.

Mobile app downloads up 127%, searches up 41% and calls to the directory service up 35%.