Company: Vodafone Czech Republic
Company Description: Vodafone Czech Republic is part of the UK based global mobile communications operator since 2005, when the Czech mobile operator Oskar (owned by Cesky Mobil) was acquired and subsequently rebranded. Since 1999, Oskar was the third and fastest growing mobile telecommunications network in the country.
Nomination Category: Creative Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Creative Organization

Nomination Title: Vodafone Czech Republic Brand and Communications

   1. Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

          This is a story of how a small challenger Czech brand, Oskar, successfully
          transitioned to become part of a corporate giant – Vodafone.  And along the
          way, be wholly transformed into a values based organization which consumers and
          employees showed a lot of heart for.  All within one year.

          To successfully rebrand the company, Vodafone recognized you have to sell it on
          the inside before you sell it outside. Employees were quite fearful they had
          been swallowed by a corporate monster so transparency, frequent communications
          and employee engagement were key. Vodafone launched a creative internal program
          under the banner PAINT IT RED. The campaign became a springboard to communicate
          to employees they were getting the best of both worlds: Oskar‘s challenger
          spirit, low price and exceptional treatment and Vodafone‘s breadth and techno
          savvy. Through experiential employee programs and the right integration of
          Vodafone‘s four passions the Vodafone flame was burning strong.

          Instilling customer confidence and awareness about the brand migration was
          raised by a dual Oskar/Vodafone branding campaign “A connection that works“,
          leveraging the strengths of both brands over a six month period. The Vodafone
          brand launch was preceded by an invasive advertising teaser—an unbranded red
          hand print. The launch on February 1 took a holistic 360 degree approach.
          Besides rebranding 340 touchpoints overnight from store signs to cars, the
          campaign inlcuded TV, outdoor, interactive media, a host of innovative
          alternative media from black postering, viral, ambient ads to „false covers“ on
          all major daily and weekly publications.  The spontaneous brand awareness after
          3 months was 65%, while competitor O2, which rebranded 6 months later, achieved
          only 40% awareness within a comparable period.  The rebranding was also
          recognized as best in class in rebranding of all Vodafone OpCos.

          After the launch the executive team was busy putting in place the building
          blocks to the company being a values based organization (VBO). A mainly bottom-
          up employee approach to defining our company purpose, goal, strategies, and
          values.  The VBO model fosters motivation and responsibility of employees, and
          is designed to  drive positive business results.

          Our VBO goal was to „define the future of the mobile industry by being brave
          enough to only do what‘s right for the customer“. One of the key strategies was
          to make major offers available to all existing and new customers. Something
          just not generally done in this market.

          The challenge was to communicate our commitment to our goal to the market at
          large at an extremely sensitive business time of year – Christmas. But that
          wasn‘t all, the original service offer was seen as not fitting our VBO and was
          cancelled at the last minute leaving us with just three weeks to develop a
          campaign around a more aligned Offer. Tapping some strong internal advertising
          talent, our brand team created a winning campaign. Positioning us as the fair,
          clear operator, the campaign message was: „No fake reindeer. No tricks. Both
          new and existing customers get free SMS on the weekends,“  symbolized by a
          small and slightly ridiculous chihuahua wearing fake antlers, with the message
          delivered by a satirical comedian embodying Czech humor.  The idea mocked the
          typical Christmas kitsch used by other advertisers, which was not relevant to
          Czech culture, immediately striking a chord with the Czechs. To add fuel to the
          fire, we played a practical joke on our competitors giving their billboards
          reindeer antlers, as „fake“ as the ones our chihuahua wore.  This helped spur
          an unprecedented news coverage around the campaign, numerous spoofs by
          political cartoonists and celebrities, even on shows like the Pop Idol. Kids
          and adults mimicked our TV commercial by heart, even the prime minister of the
          country referred to the ad in a political speech.  We had the best results in
          four years with 22percent increase in sales, unheard of in a saturated market.

          Vodafone’s creativity brought in 3 big wins at the recent Louskacek awards
          (Nutcracker award, Art Directors Club), including the Client of the Year.  Our
          instore consumer magazine CiliChili, which has the highest circulation for any
          lifestyle magazine in the market, recently received the Golden Semicolon award.
          And so did our comics-style design Annual Report!

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

          Oskar Becomes Vodafone
          http://www.vodafone.cz/gen_en/about/press/news.htm?id=292&year=2006

          Today Graham Maher becomes Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone CR
          http://www.vodafone.cz/gen_en/about/press/news.htm?id=294&year=2006
          
          Real Christmas for all Vodafone customers
          http://www.vodafone.cz/gen_en/about/press/news.htm?id=328&year=2006
          
          „No fake reindeer“ ad on YouTube
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phwBQmCcn38
           
          Chihuahuas bring seven times more visitors to Vodafone web pages
          http://www.vodafone.cz/gen_en/about/press/news.htm?id=343&year=2006   
         

          Gary McGuire, Vodafone Czech Republic’s Vice President Brand & Communications,
          joined Vodafone in 2003. Creative vision, talented team, long hours and a big
          heart brought the Vodafone brand to be one of strongest brands on the Czech
          market.  Before joining Oskar/Vodafone, Gary worked on advertising that helped
          bring to life challenger brands, such as in the highly successful launch of the
          BMW MINI in Canada, and the start up telco Clearnet which is now Telus - one of
          the most sustained brand successes.  And his favorite two words? "What if..?"—
          that’s where creativity gets its kick.