It might just workWe get asked a lot about how the 48 brand was created - so decided to scribble it all down whilst

it’s still fresh in our heads. We did not create 48 on our own. We worked with some smart guys,

were inspired by some creative folk and stole from the best challenger-brand literature around.

It would not have been possible without the full backing of our Telefónica senior management –

no small thing when you consider what we were proposing; a brand that tells most of the market

it is not for them. To quote Jonnie Cahill, our Marketing Director and project sponsor “who

knows, it might just work”.

Paul + Emer

The brand team @ Telefónica Digital

Paul.dervan2@o2.comEmer.mccarthy2@o2.com

Background 4

Brand extension or brand new? 5

Creating a youth brand from scratch 6

Our value proposition 9

Building on scarcity 9

A brand only for 48 months 9

The 48 brand 10

Building creative flexibility into the brand 13

Our launch 15

Media context 16

The 48 media rulebook 17

Creative strategy 19

Injecting our brand into every interaction 23

Story so far 24

Communication measures 25

Brand measures 26

Commercial measures 26

Contents

4

BackgroundTelefónica’s O2 brand is the number-two player brand in the Irish market with over 30% share.

When we began this piece of work, O2 had some of the youth market. Yet, it had not focused on

it as much as its competitors; it instead e!ectively served older segments. These segments are

generally less sensitive to price. Their purchasing decisions are also influenced by brand size,

trust, network coverage and customer service – all of which O2 was known for, and still is.

But as total market growth slowed down, competition increased and the economy fell apart, we

re-examined the youth segment as an opportunity to grow market share.

We felt we could steal some share of youth.

5

Brand extension or new brand?Launching a value proposition under the O2 brand would have been the less costly and faster-to

market approach. It would have been the easier-to-execute solution. The O2 brand has over 95%

awareness in Ireland. It also boasts a strong distribution of retail stores nationwide, an e!ective

marketing team, as well as strong sponsorships, contacts and suppliers that could be leveraged to

deliver a new value proposition.

O2 is for my parentsThe O2 brand is polished, slick and smart. It’s worth billions. We’re both honoured and proud to

have managed it in Ireland. Given its international success, O2 warrants strong and strict brand

guardianship. Ever consistent, ever present; you can spot a piece of O2 advertising a mile o!.

But it’s this consistency of appearance and tone that can also be a weakness when trying to

attract di!erent audiences, especially the youth market. In Ireland, the O2 brand does not suggest

‘youth’ to kids. It is described as ‘premium, ‘for my parents’. It would take radical action and time

to change perceptions. And it was questionable whether we’d want to change perceptions so

radically, when the brand successfully appealed to a third of the population already. We needed to

tread carefully.

Threat of cannibalisationThere was another challenge. If we were actually successful in persuading teenagers that O2 was

a brand for them, with value propositions just for them, our existing, older O2 customers may also

want these (lower-priced) propositions. There was a real threat that we would cannabalise our

existing customer base.

Easy decision.

6

Creating a youth brand from scratch

7

Creating a youth brand from scratchLike all challenger brands, we had far fewer resources than our competitors. But we had the

advantage that we could create a brand from scratch, completely tailored to youth – hopefully

meeting their needs, lifestyles and attitudes better than a larger competitor that serves many

segments.

No pyramid polishingWe had just one month to create our new brand. We needed a take a practical, pragmatic

approach to brand building. No time for ‘brand pyramid polishing’ as marketer and author

David Taylor would say. So, we chose to work with the very talented innovation agency ‘WhatIf

Innovation’ and a small group of young, talented, creative folk.

Shield the existing brandA key requirement when creating our new brand was we needed to shield O2. Our goal was to

steal market share in Ireland within the under-25s segment. Anyone over-25 was within O2’s

heartland. So our new brand had to also repel the over-25 market.

Our competitors Our brandStores throughout the country. No stores - youths didn’t value them

Expensive call centres No call centres – youths didn’t value them

Many, confusing price tari!s Simple, transparent pricing

V

8

Teenagers go through massive change during these pivotal years We immersed ourselves in the world of teenagers. The insight that immerged as most interesting

for us was that teenage years are ones of massive change. Things change a lot for them during

these pivotal years between child and adult. These are times when they do their driving tests,

have their first relationship, first break up, first day in college and many other firsts.

Other relevant insights Other insights that influenced our brand decisions included:

Teenagers are not a patient lot. They have grown up expecting immediate gratification.

Regardless of any great value, if we didn’t make things easy for them to access, we’d lose

them along the way.

They’re inventive. They find ways around things. Money is tight with these guys. They

accept this and see it as a challenge. They’ll look for the cheapest win every time. That

might mean stealing the neighbour’s Wi-Fi or reselling bottles of Tesco vodka. And when

they do so, they gain social currency from peers. They become celebrated, not shunned.

Simplicity and transparency were important for trust. They have come to expect hidden

charges and ‘catches’ from big corporations.

They don’t look too far ahead into the future. Any event beyond the immediate six months

was not going to influence them. Your youth years are a time when serious could wait.

9

Our value propositionOur value proposition set out to challenge the way mobile was seen in Ireland. We’d compete

on what youths valued – price, simplicity, transparency. And customer service delivered through

Internet and social media. Just as importantly, we’d not o!er features or services that youths

could live without.

Building on scarcityWe were liberated by the idea that we could be a brand that was not for everyone. This already

gave us a licence to be a bold confident brand.

We further built on this idea to see if the concept of scarcity could play a strategic role within

our brand. We played with various versions of this. For example, we considered a brand ‘only for

under 25s’ that we called SUB25. We looked at iterations of this - ‘invite-only’ or a brand where

‘only girls get free sims’, but guys didn’t.

A brand only for 48 monthsWe landed on the concept of a brand that would only be for a specific period of their lives –

their inbetweener years. This perfectly fit our insight and was on strategy. No better way to let

teenagers know this brand is for them. And to tell others we were not for them.

We also knew that it would create talk – was there seriously a brand saying we only want a very

small group of people? And even with this group, we would kick them o! our network after four

years. It was ballsy. Full of energy. We loved it. So our brand would be just for youths aged 18 to

their 22nd birthday, the 48 best months in their lives.

We had our new brand - 48.

10

The 48 brand

11

Being a teenager is a strange time... its the prime of our

youth, when we get out and see the world. We learn so much

about ourselves during this time. Like Eddie Vedder said... allthats sacred comes from youth... but its more than that. Notonly is it the prime and the epitome of our youth, but its alsowhen the prospect of being an adult really dawns on us .

Its a very exciting , magical time, but its also a very sad,

fleeting one. To realize that here we are, old enough to drive

and s tay out late and fall in love and everything , but wegotta make the best of it while we can. Because tomorrow, we may be putting on a suit and tie every day, paying bills ,s itting at a desk . Its like we only get a tiny window to

learn who we really are as mature people, before the burdenof modern life crushes who we wished to become.

,

,,,

, ,

,

Teenager comment online

Our brand idea: celebrating the best 48 months of your lifeThe 48 months between the ages of 18-22 are epic. Think about it. Your first relationship. Your

first break-up. Your first day in collage. And other firsts. They all culminated in those 48 months.

It was beyond eventful and you never had the money to enjoy it. Ironically, it was the best time of

your life. You just didn’t know it yet.

That’s where 48 lives. It celebrates those 48 months. It reminds 48ers that this period of immunity

is finite. It challenges them to make the most of this reckless and happily irresponsible period.

Go ConquerOur brand idea was nicely articulated with the tagline ‘Go conquer’. It had loads of energy and

was directive in a tongue-in-cheek way. We liked this line from the very beginning, although we

didn’t realise how quickly it would gain traction with youths. Many refer to us as “48 Go Conquer”.

Our brand attributes: Be playful. Look magnetic. Act opportunistic.We always wanted our brand to be playful. It needed fun. After all, serious can wait. We would

not take things seriously. We also felt it should be an attractive brand. Our pricing would be

cheap, so we wanted to counter this perception by never looking tacky or cheap. We wanted

youths to be attracted to us. Finally we would act in an opportunistic way – always looking for

tactical opportunities to create talk. That’s it - three attributes. Everything else we’d figure out as

we went along.

12

Go Conquer

Our attitude: We don’t want a +�%�-"(',!")�E�#.,-���`"' The other interesting angle was that we said

“We’re not for you forever”. We talked about

48 being more like a fling than a relationship.

This took some explaining internally. The

(very reasonable) questions we fielded went

something like this “We’re actually going to

kick paying customers o! our network? And

we’re telling them this even before they join

us?”

But we knew from our industry experience

that teenagers don’t stay with their network for

anything near four years. And when we tested

this aspect with teenagers. they confirmed that,

for them, four years is a lifetime away. They’d

deal with it when they time comes. They don’t

think ahead beyond six months.

@."%�"' ��+��-"/��`�1"�"%"-2�"'-(� the brandHaving worked on such a consistent brand in

the past, we knew the inherent baggage this

can bring when it comes to message cut-

through. Consistent brands can often insist on

a particular format, colour, style always used.

This makes sense but is limiting. We wanted a

consistent brand but also wanted flexibility.

13

Our Slate background

Our competitors’ brands were all inherently nice. Wholesome. Bright colours. Optimistic.

Good. Polite. Nobody played in the darker side of the spectrum. Black was too dark for

them. But not for us. It was bold, confident, and edgy. It felt young and worked well with

all other colours. Ultimately we’ve moved from a flat black background to a distressed slate

one, which gave it texture and was more interesting than a pure black colour.

Our Rip / tear

We used a rip/tear in our communications, which separated our slate background from the

rest of the ad. Essentially, what this did was allow us to use any colours, any style and any

creative format while still being clearly a 48 piece of communication.

Flexible 48 logo and font

While we have not changed our 48 logo yet, we agreed it could change shape and colour

- once it had su"cient awareness. Similarly we changed font of our ‘Go Conquer’ tagline

in our second campaign. While this seems to break brand ‘consistency’ rules, our brand

meaning is very coherent – allowing for us to not be too rigid in consistency measures.

Also, to date, we’ve used the same headline “Go Conquer” in every single outdoor

execution.

Coherent brand first

Because our brand was build around a very easy-to-understand concept, we did not need

to rely on a singular creative treatment to stay consistent. We had lots of flexibility with

style, format, energy and colours. Our second campaign ‘Serious can wait till 22’ TV ad

featured a colourful, japanese pop girl band singing in japanese. It was very di!erent to our

launch campaign in many many ways, yet was still clearly 48.

14

Our launch

Media contextThe telco industry is an advertising-heavy one.

Big players can easily drown-out any upstart.

They have the capacity to react to a competitor

quickly, with the ability to turn around a

campaign within weeks – sometimes within

days. Their campaigns are TV-led, but are

heavy on every media channel.

Their weakness, if any, is they execute too

many campaigns. This is a consequence

of complexity - having multiple segments,

multiple products and services all fighting for

promotion. The result can sometimes be short-

lived campaigns.

16

17

The 48 media rulebookOur brief to the talented bunch at Starcom Mediavest was that we needed rapid brand awareness,

credibility and immediate sales – all within youth. Almost as important, we’d like if older folks

didn’t even know we existed. Mediavest matched our challenger ambition and helped us write a

48 media rulebook that was as ballsy as the brand itself.

Outdoor (OOH) was our lead media.

We led - not with TV – but with outdoor (OOH). Youths are hard to reach but they over-

index on outdoor media consumption. Sustained advertising on billboards, buses and train

stations did the campaign’s heavy lifting of sales and brand awareness.

We planned the outdoor media months in advance around college events, festivals and

holidays. And when college was quiet, we didn’t turn outdoor o!. Instead we switched it to

smaller formats in shopping centres and nightclubs.

Use TV for what it’s best for.

While not our lead media, TV was still a very important part of our media plan. We had a

massive job to achieve brand credibility and comprehension quickly. We had a very unique

brand story that needed to be told. Putting a slick, polished, sexy ad on TV would relay

gravitas and confidence to a naturally suspicious target market. But we used it selectively.

Use di!erent media for di!erent things.

Digital accounted for our second highest investment of our media budget. We took it

extremely seriously. After all, we didn’t have a physical retail distribution. We needed online

to sell hard. The intricate targeting that the likes of Facebook and Google o!ered, allowed

us to focus our online advertising on delivering sales, whilst allowing display media to focus

on ‘awareness’ and ‘credibility’.

18

Behave bigger than you are.

One thing we learned from Apple when launching the iPhone in Ireland was to use large

formats to make a statement.

While considered less e"cient if measured by ‘direct response’, large formats can help

position your brand as ‘premium’. We used the biggest formats we could find: 48 sheets, 96

sheets, Golden Squares. Our launch TV ad was 50 seconds long. We had a story to tell and

were not going to sacrifice it for the sake of 10 or 20 seconds, especially when our TV media

buy was modest.

We did full page magazine ads. We agreed that if we did any press, it would always be a

fullpage. If we could not a!ord a full page, we would not do press at all.

We sponsored “Home & Away”, the ultimate in hangover TV shows, which ran twice a day

on our national broadcaster. The TV sponsorship also sent a subtle message that we were a

brand that was settling in for the long term.

Don’t behave like a telco.

Behave like H&M. In other words, don’t pop up overnight with a flash o!er, drown out all the

TV and radio ads, then pull your o!er and disappear weeks later. 48 was planning to always

have best-in-market o!ers for the youth market. So instead 48 would behave like a fashion

brand, say H&M or Zara; confidently reinforcing the same value, whilst rotating the creative

to remain fresh and engaging each time.

19

Creative strategy

20

Creative StrategyAlthough our competitors play big in their

advertising media, they play safe in their

creative. In fairness, this is probably the right

strategy for them, as they target every segment

and cannot risk alienating anybody. So unlike

a pair of Adidas, there was a good chance that

a teenager’s granny was with the same phone

network as they were.

Never do mirror-to-audience advertisingInfluenced by our previous brand work on O2,

and the books from challenger brand writer,

Adam Morgan – we set out the brand to never

engage in ‘mirror-to-audience’ advertising.

This is an easy trap to fall into – showing

your customers in your advertising so they

can relate to you. So many brands in their

advertising say, “This is you. We know you, so

we are for you”. But this is not the behaviour

of challenger brands. People are attracted to

confident brands - to brands that say, “This is

us. This is what we believe in.” We did not want

youths to identify with us. We wanted them

to be attracted to us. To be intrigued. Perhaps

confused. Even outraged. But leaning forward

to find out more.

We care about insights. We care less about realityWe believe challenger brand advertising is not

there to simply inform. We view it in the same way

movie writers treat their audience. They want to

be entertained, to suspect belief for a few minutes.

People want to watch drama, complexity, intrigue

and conflict. They want story.

In a world where the audience has much

more control over what ads they are exposed

to, our job is to create something intriguing,

interesting or entertaining. Something they

want to watch again. To quote Russell Davies

“Nobody ever walked out of a cinema and said

they loved the film, as it was really clear”.

SledgehammerOur modest budget meant that any piece

of communication would need to be

remembered after one viewing. Forget 5+

coverage figures. There was no room for

insipid, banal communications. So “it must be

a sledgehammer” was our filter criterion for

all our advertising. Regardless of how well the

creative route or visual conveyed our message,

it was killed if it didn’t grab people by the throat

and pull them into our brand.

21

TV

Coming-of-age storyA young talented creative called Tom Jackson wrote our TV script, with the help of our highly

creative agency – Brando. The ad is a coming-of-age story, narrated by a 22 old girl. She is

thinking back to when she was 18 and still innocent.

Stealing (with pride) a technique from Sam Mendes’ film ‘American Beauty’, the ad pulls the

audience into the story within seconds with the line: “That’s me. 18. Hardly knew a single person

in this room…but that all changed.”

Things all start to change when she hits 18 and by end of the ad she is no longer the girl she used

to be. This format allowed us to deliver our brand proposition in an interesting, memorable way.

Style referenceOur story, while insightful and smart in its format, would not in itself, deliver our sledgehammer.

That would all rest in the treatment. Brando’s style reference was a TV commercial for Billycock

jeans. The ad, called ‘Denim worth dying for’, looked more like a movie trailer. Sensual. Dark. Edgy.

With lovely camera work and a loud rifting, eerie solo guitar that built atmosphere. It reminded us

of something from Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.

There was nothing like this in the telco industry. It was perfect.

22

Outdoor (OOH) and Digital The implication from our media strategy was

we needed outdoor creative that would really

cut-through. No place for ‘wallpaper’ creative.

We took our format cue from H&M, Diesel

and other fashion brands – stunning photos

with bit of attitude. We wanted the brand

to look magnetic. But were keen not to take

ourselves too seriously – so made them a little

provocative to create talk. In addition to large

and standard formats, we tried non-traditional

ambient such as nightclub door stamps and

and bike saddle covers in universities.

Our digital was a combination of display and

very targeted facebook, Google and a"liate

marketing. The large formats were used for the

same reasons we did large outdoor – to behave

big and get notice. We used our more e"cient

pay-per-click online in conjunction with our TV

and outdoor knowing that youths will search

online if they see 48 in other media. Our twitter

and facebook pages were for customer service

and to engage customers further.

23

Injecting our brand into every interactionWe didn’t have the same resources, as the big guys, especially not in

advertising. But we injected our brand into everything we did. Every

interaction with a customer or the market was an opportunity to di!erentiate

ourselves or create talk.

Head of Rejection48 is not for everybody. So we decided to actually recruit a Head of Rejection.

Her role was to do spot check on customers to ensure our customers were ‘48

material’. This caused equal amounts of delight and outrage.

B('_+&�-"('��&�"%,We’d tell customers that we are “running background checks” on them,

sometimes explaining that we wanted to make sure, “they were not some sort

of drug lord”.

Voicemail messagesWe used the same actress from our launch TV ad for our voice messages (IVR).

And she flirted and teased customers. If you had no voicemail, you’d hear her

say “You’ve no voice messages – clearly you don’t have enough friends”.

Customer careOur customer care agents on facebook and twitter were trained on the

48 brand and would flirt or engage in a bit of banter with customers if the

opportunity arose.

24

Story so far

Communication measures While it is still early, all the measures are looking

very positive. Most importantly, 48 has outflanked its

competitors and can confidently say it is already a

serious option within youths’ consideration set. It has

delighted, outraged and polarized opinions across the

country, picking up many happy customers along the

way.

Here are some of our initial communication and brand

scores:

Outdoor (OOH)

Independent MRBI research showed that most

spontaneous awareness came from our OOH

- as you’d expect from our strategy. After three

months, our MRBI’s ‘unprompted awareness’

score, among 18-24 year olds, was 77%.

Doubled norm recall on large formats

We outperformed on every measure. For

example, our 48-sheet (large format billboards)

had double the industry average recall within 15-

19 year olds with an 82% recall.

Higher recall among women

Our outdoor also spiked for younger women,

with 83% recall among 15-19 year olds.

TV recognition

Within three months of launch, 72% of under-25s

recalled our TV ad. The Millward Brown (MB)

norm in Ireland is 49%. Despite a relatively low

TV spend, of these, 63% said they saw the ad ‘lots

of times’.

TV distinctiveness and talk ability

Our research also found that 60% of those under

25 agreed the TV ad was one that “you would

talk about with your friends”. The MB norm is

41%. Again, with the under 25s, 90% said they

found the TV ad ‘distinctive’. The MB norm is

58%. Equally interesting, was that nobody (zero)

found the ad ‘soothing’. The average is 26%.

TV message recall

82% of under 25’s recalled that ‘with 48, I can

get all calls and texts to any mobile for just #10 a

month”. And 75% of recalled our brand message

that ‘things happen when you turn 18 and next

48 months are best in your life”.

77%Unprompted awareness

82%Large Format recall

83%Recall amoung 15-19 year old women

72%Under 25’s recalled TV ad.

60%Would talk about it with friends

82%TV message recall

25

Brand measuresThese tend to be longer-term measures of brand, less connected to

specific advertising executions. These could include TBCA scores,

brand awareness, consideration and other measures of brand health.

a) Brand awareness

Within three months of launch, 63% of youths in Ireland were

aware of the 48 brand. It had spread like wildfire.

b) TBCA

Total brand communication awareness (TBCA) is a measure

of awareness of any communication about a brand – not just

advertising. Within three months, 48 generated the highest

level of total (TBCA) at 48%. Meteor, the network previously

associated with youth, was closest at 34%. Word of mouth was

the 2nd biggest driver of TBCA.

c) Brand comprehension: Why 48 exists?

Youths immediately understood not just our messages and

o!ers. They were able to understand why the 48 brand

exists. They could even articulate it to each other within the

constraints of a tweet.

Commercial measuresFor confidentiality reasons, our sales figures can’t be disclosed. But

six months in, and 48 are beating the ambitious targets, stealing

market share in youth.

63%Youth awareness

48%Total Brand Communication Awareness

26

Go Conquer