We started ‘Grandma Online’. A campaign to bring the elderly closer to their families through technology. We reconnected two 80-year old twins, living on opposite sides of the globe with a custom made video calling system on their TV. And we created workshops and a starter kits for people to teach their grandparents how to use their smartphone.

The campaign launched with a short film about two 80-year-old twins Gerrie and Truus, who live on opposite sides of the globe and hadn’t seen each other in 26 years. Together with Gerrie’s grandson Rodney we found a solution: a custom-built TV-set with which Gerrie and Truus could video call each other with the press of a button (the G or the T button).

Obviously, we could not customize the TV of every senior citizen in the Netherlands. So we asked (grand)children to give their old smartphone to their granddad or grandma. We made a starterspack with a sim card and free credit for data to get them going. We also organized workshops about social media for seniors across the country.

With ‘Grandma Online’, we created talked-about branded content and a relevant societal initiative, to connect seniors to their surroundings.

The emotional connection with Vodafone was 50% higher for the people who were exposed to the campaign. A significant difference from 18% to 27%.

The increase in positive emotion with Vodafone was 56% higher. A significant difference from 25% to 39%.

With people between 16 and 34 who saw the campaign, the brand consideration was 1.5x higher compared to those who were not exposed to the campaign. A significant difference of 45% to 76%.

The sentiment about the campaign was 95% positive

Also the four ambitious media goals have been exceeded and in some cases even doubled:

Number of views: 3.1 million (goal: 1.4 million)

Organic each: 16% (goal: >8%)

Total reach: 19 million (goal: 8 million)

Realized media value vs. media investment: 380% (goal: 200%)