When approached by Rok Mobile, a challenger mobile network that offers unlimited music streaming (with their own music service), unlimited data, messaging and voice, they wanted something that would be different than other mobile campaign positioning on the market.
We stopped them in their tracks. We discovered that while several other brands offered competing unlimited services, and most offered the same song catalog, they all approached mobile the same way: fun lifestyle campaigns, showing snake people doing fun lifestyle things. Or they touted the quantity of music they had, even though they all had more or less the same music.
One thing I learned from my time on Alltel, is that it's very hard to break through the network brand cache of the big guys. So chasing them with similar branding wasn't going to do anything.
Outdoor boards and other media placements randomly highlight users in the areas as they challenge themselves to live. Others are encouraged to get them to maximize their time. Glory awaits.
We went gonzo. We reframed the prepaid plan into a 30 day unlimited challenge that transforms you into an Unlimited Better Version of You in a race against the clock. It's one part Crossfit and one part Ultraman. We said Rok gives you the tools to live your life in a completely 24/7 kind of way, because it wants you to.
It's a call to arms to snake people to stand up and take the strides they've always wished they did. We positioned Rok as the brand of the festival goers, the bar closers and the sunrise watchers.
Think about it, you can make every phone call you've ever wanted. Have every conversation you've ever hoped to. Play music on the beach at 4am because the guy you just met wants to dance to Nancy Sinatra. You can connect to that Hollywood executive you ran into at the 24 hour diner, and you can send your resume.
You can change your entire life. Own the night. Own the party. Own your own plan.
Starting service is a simple button push. This button starts a countdown clock. It's a challenge: how much unlimited can you use? How unlimited can you live? Once the clock stops, do you do it again or do you go back to your mundane life?
We also gave Rok a brand position for their music application. Leave Spotify and Apple to themselves. Make the use of app as much a statement as the service is. It's excess and experiential. It merges electronic art with music discovery.
We shocked them into rethinking how they thought of their own business. 'Can we do that? What happens if we encourage them to use as much data as possible"...