Skinny is a low-cost telco in New Zealand who promise to keep their prices low and customers happy.

With tiny budgets, we needed a campaign to grow:

Consideration

Lowest price perception

Sales

Previous AV-led campaigns have been successful at making obvious the sacrifices Skinny makes to keep their prices low without compromising on quality.

We didn’t want to throw the playbook out, but with significant increases in TV costs, and our budget down 30% YoY, we simply couldn’t afford to have an AV led media strategy.

Still needing the high reach and high trust of AV, we decided to keep the A but remove the V.

An audio led approach would cost effectively deliver us the same reach, and was under-utilised by our competitors, giving us a disproportionate SOV.

But we needed to make it feel Skinny and demonstrate our commitment to saving money on our creative executions.

The communication strategy was built to deliver to three key principles:

1. Record-ability – the media placements needed to consider the audience’s ability to actually read the script and be physically able to pull out their phone and call up to record the script. Highway billboards were out.

2. Pique attention – the creative wouldn’t capture attention, so we needed impactful media placements that would turn up in unexpected places to pique people’s interest.

3. Context is king – to sustain their attention, we needed to work incredibly closely with our creative partners to ensure every single media touchpoint had a bespoke script that spoke to the mindset or moment the person was in

Once we had the recordings, we’d then push throughout the airwaves to reach as many New Zealanders as possible.

Try saying ‘the beguiling allure of Skinny’s splendiferous mobile network’ after a few drinks. That’s what scripts on coasters in pubs asked drinkers to record.

Pie packets and coffee cups encouraged those taking a break to dial in - “Maybe it’s the caffeine talking but I’ve never been so pumped up about a telco!’’

Commuters were targeted via posters on platforms, posters outside law firms referenced the clientele, and mirror decals in barbers offered an alternative to small talk.

60” TV ads spoke to insomniacs at 3am, while post-credits cinema ads spoke to superfans waiting for Easter Eggs.

In total, we had 34 individual executions across 34 hand-selected media placements, each crafted to make the most of the environment.

All supported with a nationwide radio partnership talking about the campaign and where to find scripts, while 30” radio ads played the various scripts at heavy weights across the country.

Our campaign reached 77% of New Zealanders, resulting in a massive library of 2,500+ radio recordings – all proclaiming Skinny’s low prices and happy customers, delivered straight from the mouths of mobile users…. of whom 64% were NOT Skinny customers.

Most of our ads were recorded by other telcos' customers!

And it didn’t cost a cent to record.

And it worked!

Consideration for Skinny jumped from 38% to 47%

‘Offers lowest mobile prices’ jumped from 43% to 48%

And the true test of success – sales went through the roof.

The month after our campaign, we hit the highest sales result in the last two years.

Acquisition was up 34% compared to the same month the previous year

And net base movement was DOUBLE that of the previous month.

We now have a bank of 22 hours’ worth of radio ads that can see us through for the next year.