Since 2020, Gen Z has been identified by Telekom as the strategic stronghold for maintaining the brand’s relevancy and edge. Not only are they the most connected audience, but they have also ushered in the generational shifts that are transforming consumer behaviors, creating strong impacts across all demographics.

While it is comparably easy to find Gen Z in media, they are also increasingly difficult to convince. Our goal has thus been to establish a meaningful connection with them by providing tangible values most relevant to this generation.

Adhering to the digital optimism central to Telekom’s brand values, our communication approach for What We Value was designed to help the brand achieve the following:

• Business Objective: Strengthening Telekom’s relationship with Gen Z and inspire their loyalty as customers.

• Marketing Objective: Elevating Telekom’s brand attributes within this specific segment and position the brand as a preferred provider of choice.

As a leading provider of the connected technology which gave birth to many of today’s social movements, Telekom recognizes Gen Z’s efforts in actively addressing environmental and social issues. A Telekom study shows that 82 percent of Gen Z globally say they are actively involved in advocacy and activism. Meanwhile, this young generation represents a group of avid initiators of social dialogues intended to resolve conflicts and propel changes.

In awe of this socially conscious and action orientated generation, Telekom is determined to support youth volunteerism.

Designed with Gen Z to accelerate the causes that are their main concerns, the free-to-access What We Value platform would empower those who already volunteer by helping them advance their projects. Meanwhile, those projects serve as prompts to encourage Gen Z at large to improve the world through active engagements across 6 main causes: Migration, Mental Wellbeing, Education, Environment, Animal Welfare and Equality.

We would introduce Value NFT, positioned as the socially most valuable NFT to be issued to young volunteers who upload a project to the platform. Owning the Value NFT unlocks ‘money-can’t-buy’ opportunities such as live events that would further one’s project. At the end of each month, the top 2 projects with the highest number of likes would unlock further Telekom support (up to a one-off value of €35,000) to boost the project’s real-world impact.

By joining Gen Z on a journey to identify and tackle issues that are most relevant for our society, we would demonstrate how Telekom is committed to acting responsibly and using its resources to combat today's environmental and social challenges.

Our goal is to encourage traffic to Telekom’s owned What We Value platform via paid media, and to convince others through earned media to participate in the various volunteering projects being promoted on the platform.

Launched in two phases, What We Value featured a range of Gen-Z-focused channels including Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok, Spotify, Twitch, Vice, and Discord.

Phase 1 – Call for projects:

Branded content created jointly with Vice were used to announce the project and explain the campaign mechanism.

Targeting socially committed Gen Z communities, Phase 1 sought to create platform awareness and encourage project uploads.

Phase 2 – Campaign launch:

Awareness: Introducing the campaign short film that features a montage of different volunteering projects, showcasing the diversity and the immense potential of the campaign.

Engagement: Launching a Snap lens and partnered with relevant influencers to create tailored content. Meanwhile, we also hosted a series of inspiring talks on Discord and created podcasts to further supported our initiative.

Broadening the audience to Gen Z at large, Phase 2 aimed to amass impressions and drive further engagements with the platform and existing projects.

As a branding campaign, #WhatWeValue contributed to impressive uplifts of the Telekom brand among Gen Z:

• Brand fit shift: 15%+ (150%+ against target)

Kantar results proved that the success went far beyond industry standards:

• Ad awareness: 30%+ (vs. 5,5% benchmark)

• Brand favourability: 29% (vs. 1,8%)

• Brand consideration: 23% (vs. 1,2%)

• Message association: 15% (vs. 2,0%)

Meanwhile, What We Value platform inspired high engagement among Gen Z:

• Total visits: 1,9M

• Unique visitors: 1,6M

• Bounce rate: 19,08%

• Projects submitted: 165; Project accepted and published: 108

• Project supported (Boost / Share / Like): 174K

In terms of media effects, contextual link to Gen Z yielded great success:

• 950M impressions

• 109,7M completed video views, 13,2% VTR

• 94%+ target group penetration (vs 50% BM)

• Avg. 8,2 contacts

• 82+ pieces of editorial coverage

• Social Listening: 92,1% positive/ neutral mentions