About six weeks ago, during “Zilele Marketerului 2008” I was talking with my friends Loredana and Raluca from Airbites about a new challanging unconventional campaign that they were planning to start. They couldn’t decide on what agency to use and what touchpoints. I remember them mentioning something about Claudiu‘s Wunderkid and I told them it could be a good idea because I’ve known Claudiu since 2002 maybe and I know he has a lot of experince, plus he’s been through almost every major agency in Iasi, so it’s definately a good choice.
To back my idea up even more I will show their latest campaign. I was mentioning something about finding the right touchpoint and here it is. They chose to go directly into the places where an important part of their core target is, the highschools. They have indoor advertising (which I think it’s on my friends’ Ciprian mini-billboards) but they didn’t stop here because it’s not just a simple advertising campaign.
In fact, things are really well thought. Judging strategicly, they come with a promotion that gives away 1000 RON bills (personalized of course) that can be used in any Airbites Connect Center throughout the city. The 1000 RON bills are distributed by Airbites personalized ATM machines that are placed on the hallways of every major highschool as you can see in the pictures in the slideshow below. With the bill, the client can get a price-off for any contract (existing or new) and about six months of free internet. Of course there are some specifications but these are written on the back side of the 1000 RON bill, so study it carefully.
Since I have read the back of the bill I can also criticize a little bit the campaign. Just a little bit. They chose the highschool as a touchpoint and that means that they are targeting teenagers as I stated before, but there is no specification whatsoever (on the backside of the bill nor anywhere else on the poster) that in order to obtain the price-off (while using the bill), the client has to be a teenager. So, if this is a an offer for any posible client, why choose only highschool hallways for placing the ATMs. Of course, there is a possible explanation for that (teenagers could be their weakest market segment at the moment and they wish to attract them) but there are aslo some RTBs that restraining the bills’ distribution area is not a very good idea. For instance, teenagers rarelly take their own decisions when it comes to money spending (esspecialy because they do not earn their own money) and contract deals are for 2 years and there are a lot of specifications that could be considered missleading (let’s not forget that most of these teenagers are under 18 years of age so, legaly their parents are still in charge of their decisions).
Anyway, Airbites is very courageous and so is Claudiu and I salute them. Competition on the ISP and digital services market is very strong and initiatives like this brake the “in the box” barrier. So, look for the 1000 RON bill and get free internet and do that quick because the promotion ends on January 31st. Well done!
It’s clearly misleading. And it’s not ok, since we’re talking about undearage people, who can be tricked. Maybe they should have put a small footnote saying what are the terms for such a discount.
@credit pfa: There is a “footnote” on the backside of the bill but it doesn’t state anything about the age.
+:
the rationale is ok
– get teenagers to go home and tell their parents – mom, look at this awesome promotion, now we can get discount internet – or smth like that
– teens do pay attention to large promotions, while parents stopped doing that in recent years
– the medium (highschool ads) is cheaper and the group easier to penetrate – not many companies “talk” to teens
-:
the way it’s put to practice lacks coherence
– teens are underage and can’t sign contracts
– kids are smart and they know a “fishy”/”bait” offer – and they don’t like it :))
+/-
– the message seems written for an adult, the tone is not adjusted to the conversation – it could be good or not – treat them like adults vs talking a diff. language
other:
– I don’t think they spotted a weak segment they’re trying to conquer
PS it’s odd writing in English, I now realize how natural it seems to write in Romanian
@andrei: Why is it so odd. Think of it as an exercise. BTW, read the comment from Mamae Lucica at the previous post. I’m doing some people a service. They’re learning english because of me. 😉