How to Get Consumers to Create Your Ad for Free - and with No Incentive

Telco provider Skinny wanted its latest campaign to build on its brand promise of saving money for consumers. Colenso BBDO took it to the next level by walking the talk in saving money for consumers. They created a low-cost campaign that is literally powered by consumers. 

The Skinny Phone It In campaign was a hit straight out of the gates, and to date, over 2,500 radio ads have been produced – by consumers. It engaged everyday Kiwis on the street by plastering radio scripts in typical media platforms as well as at ordinary places such as cafes, bars, hairdressing salons, public rest rooms – and got them to record it as a radio ad. And with no incentive offered too. That is quite a feat.

The campaign strikes a chord in the market, considering the telco market in New Zealand is a volatile one, with consumers easily switching providers whenever they want. Even with growth projected to return to the market, the retail competition is intensifying, and telco brands are keeping a close watch on subscriber movements. 

However, good news abound for smaller players such as Skinny. The competitive landscape is evolving, and traditional telcos such as Spark and Vodafone are being challenged by smaller players, who are also vying for a share of the pie. And their voices are getting louder and gaining traction with Kiwis.

Skinny’s voice is reverberating in the market, and as a brand that was created for the youth, so are the presence of its young consumers. “They are far more diverse now than ever before, and they continue to get older and older every year, so it’s a demographic that is growing up with the brand, says Colenso BBDO’s strategy director Amy Pollok. 

She adds, “ Skinny has always really leaned on honesty and authenticity and we're upfront about what we are and what we're not. I think that honesty came through in the campaign and the majority of the copy was pretty upfront in getting consumers to promote us.”

CCO Simon Vicars shares that having worked on the brand for two years, the campaign is an important part of its evolution, and the emphasis will always be on keeping the prices low and keeping consumers happy. “People really get the brand, and that has translated into strong consumer validation. It is really something, to have them advocating for Skinny by talking about the campaign and sharing it.” 

LBB> How did the idea and approach come about? What was the thought process behind it?

Simon> When brands pay big money for celebrities, it’s the end consumer who ends up paying for it. Skinny is a telco in New Zealand that’s famous for its low prices. The over-priced celebrity thing felt like a great thing for Skinny to solve. We were hunting for a way to short circuit that celebrity endorsement world. So rather than giving our radio scripts to Morgan Freeman, we figured we’d publish them around the country and get New Zealanders to read them for free.   

Amy> Skinny loves to find ingenious ways to save customers. It’s a rich space to play in, and using non-celebrities to front our ads is one way that Skinny does this.

LBB> What were the narratives of the scripts and how were they specific to its location?

Simon> The scripts changed depending on where they were located. Making them contextually relevant so that they spoke to the mindset or moment the person was in was really important to us. We knew it would make it that much more engaging for people taking part. We had a writers’ room and three copywriters working really closely with media company PHD. At last count, we could have had about 45 variations of the script. 

Amy> Each script included our hero messages of Skinny’s low prices and great network, but everything else was completely crafted to make the most of the space it was in.

LBB> How was the creative idea developed and executed across the wide range of channels from billboard, newspaper, to TVC, socials and coffee cups? 

Simon> We wanted to turn up in unexpected places. Billboards and street posters so that we got scale, but then clever digital buys and ambush media placements so that we got talkability. It was also about being smart with our media dollars, because spending millions is counter to the idea. That meant we wrangled our way into 3am TV slots to speak to insomniacs and pie packs to capture hungry workers.

LBB> How was each channel leveraged to optimise consumer engagement?

Simon> Once we put our scripts out in the world, we used a nationwide radio partnership to point people towards them. That was a great way to amplify the idea. We had the radio ads playing on air, while hosts talked about the campaign and where to find scripts. It was like a nationwide treasure hunt, just without the treasure because no one was getting paid.  

Amy> We were super single minded here – every ad drove people to our Skinny answering machine where they could record their own script – we knew which placement they’d seen based on the script they read.

LBB> How many radio ads were recorded? How did you manage the process to ensure the quality and output?

Simon> Right now we’re sitting at just over 2,500. We really worked hard to make the campaign as simple as possible to engage with. Skinny’s legal team were great and kept helping us find ways to remove those little barriers that might just make it too hard for someone to actually do it. When we hit 1,000 recordings, we knew we‘d got that user flow right.  

Amy> Skinny has a little over 250,000 customers in New Zealand. That may seem small, but if Skinny customers were a city they’d be the 3rd largest in New Zealand! So almost one in a hundred Skinny customers have called and recorded an ad – that’s pretty unreal engagement.

LBB> In 2020, Colenso started a national movement with its Friend-vertising campaign. What were the learning points from it that gave valuable insights for the Phone It In campaign?

Simon> The main lesson was when you make a great product, people will advocate for it. Then it’s up to you to figure out how to turn advocation into entertainment. But yeah, the lesson is make great products, offer great service, find a brand positioning that is true to your core – then go be interesting.

Amy> Skinny customers really, really love the brand. We’re always looking for ways to unleash our cult of customers and make it easy for them to promote Skinny and recruit new customers. We had faith that if we put the messages out there, people would pick up the phones.

LBB> How did the campaign strengthen its competitive advantage in the market?

Simon> Skinny’s motto is to do whatever it takes to keep prices low and customers happy. It’s cool for brands to have beliefs, but unless they act on them they’re worthless. Phone It In was a perfect demonstration of that belief, and further reinforced their dominance at the low-cost end of the market.

LBB> What are the significant takeaways and learning points from this campaign? How will it help Colenso BBDO to continue moving up the bar in telco advertising?

Simon> I’m not sure we’ve learned anything new, but we’ve definitely been reminded of things we knew already. Firstly, don’t just yell at people, add to culture. And when you get a brand that has a clear positioning and great product, don’t be lazy. Keep reinventing ways to make it interesting. I always saw Dove as the masters of this. The next thing we do on Skinny should be totally unexpected, but inevitable.