2025 Gold Media Strategy

Agency: Zenith, Wonderhood Studios and Generation

Client: Three UK

Entry Name: Glow

Executive Summary

Three had a churn problem. Customers didn’t feel valued, and facing a merger where retention was a commercial imperative, something had to change.

Strategy

Data stated customers who engaged with Three+ (its rewards programme) had higher NPS and lower churn. But awareness and usage were tiny. The team needed to wake customers up to the good things they were missing.

Inspired by the insight that Brits glow with satisfaction for three days after a great deal, creative wrapper *GLOW* followed - creating a beacon of customer love, wrapping up loyalty propositions and perks into a dazzling integrated campaign with an end-to-end creative approach.

The media approach reframed Three’s approach to loyalty, redirecting brand acquisition spend into customer, and used paid and owned channels to speak directly to customers.

Creativity

The creative north star was simple: make customers feel loved. The work needed to make the brand’s approach to loyalty feel different. More emotional, more of a public display of love, more envy inspiring.

The *GLOW* Manifesto, a public love letter to all customers, was used as a guide to the cornucopia of content creators involved in the campaign, and created a visual world that could be adopted in multiple channels. A hero film dramatised the idea literally: a customer glowing with joy from her £1 coffee shines so brightly she dazzles passers-by, even leaving them sunburned.

Radio flipped the convention, with sailors mistaking a customer’s glow for a lighthouse beacon. Social was treated as central: creator Henry Rowley built glow-led skits designed for feeds-first. Stores, Three’s most important touchpoint, became physical beacons. Windows glowed, staff embodied the manifesto, apparel and experiences brought it to life.

Results

High-risk cohorts exposed to *GLOW* messaging show two to three points lower churn intent than controls. The first two months of the campaign prevented 15,500 customers from leaving.

Three+ active users peaked at 17.4%, up from 14.2% pre-campaign, meaning over 300,000 more customers used Three+ every month. *GLOW* reversed a six-month decline in brand consideration and delivered the highest spontaneous awareness of any Three campaign to date.

Contributors

RSA Headland, Mirador Group, Wake The Town, Jam Imaging, Absolute Post, DMB, Magic Number

The Team

Caroline Parkes, Chief Experience Officer, Wonderhood Studios – Aidan McClure, Chief Creative Officer, Wonderhood Studios – Jack Croft, Executive Creative Director, Wonderhood Studios – Tad Buxton, Creative, Wonderhood Studios – India Penny, Creative, Wonderhood Studios – Stacey Bird, Executive Creative Director, Wonderhood Studios – Joe Harris, Head of Planning, Wonderhood Studios – Rob Jennings, Strategy Director, Wonderhood Studios – Amy Powell, Data Strategist, Wonderhood Studios – Sam Brown, Managing Director, Wonderhood Studios – Andrew Wright, Business Director, Wonderhood Studios – Tara Lidstone, Account Director, Wonderhood Studios – Sri Sai Mahendrasigamani, Account Manager, Wonderhood Studios – Minna Griffiths, Account Manager, Wonderhood Studios – Katarzyna Wozniak, Senior Designer, Wonderhood Studios – Simon Elvins, Head of Design, Wonderhood Studios – Alice Konstam, Senior Producer, Wonderhood Studios – Anu Kogbodoku, Assistant Producer, Wonderhood Studios – Katie Hunter, Managing Partner Makers, Wonderhood Studios – Ella Banks, Influencer Creative, Wonderhood Studios – Deirdre Tippen, Head of Performance Marketing & Planning, Three UK – Natalie Goodall, Senior Marketing Manager, Three UK – Nicole ter Horst, Head of Brand, Design & Creative Services, Three UK – Emma Fisher, Senior Retail Partnerships & Activations Manager, Three UK – Iain Beable, Social Media Lead, Three UK – Rachel Stavrou, Senior Marketing Strategy Lead, Three UK – Laurence Allan, Marketing & Business Insight Lead, Three UK – Angela Ebanks, Brand Marketing Manager, Three UK – Kim Virdi, Senior Customer Communications Marketing Manager, Three UK – Morgan Levey, Customer Communications Specialist, Three UK – Julia Doyle, Creative Director, Three UK – Greg Farrington, Senior Creative, Three UK – Chris Loydall, Senior Designer, Three UK – Rafaela Balster, Senior Motion Designer, Three UK – Cosmin Laparu, Motion Designer, Three UK – Ross Bennet, Head of Creative Production, Three UK – Steve Kirkby, Print Production, Three UK – Kishan Phandey, Creative Artworker, Three UK – Anoop Patel, Creative Artworker, Three UK – Eden Clay, Creative Artworker, Three UK – Ben Walker, Executive Creative Director, Generation – Tristan Povey, Design Director, Generation – Bea Clark, Account Management Lead, Generation – Charlie Pullan, Account Director, Generation – Harriette Cassie, Managing Partner, Zenith – Richard Clay, Chief Strategy Officer, Zenith – Rob Finch, Group Strategy Director, Zenith – Libby Sanderson, Business Director, Zenith – Taylor Morrison, Planning Director, Zenith – Megan Hughes, Senior Planning Executive, Zenith