2015 Bronze Best Loyalty or CRM Programme

LIDA

O2

O2 Refresh

The Team

Nicky Bullard - Executive Creative Director James Thorley - Creative Group Head
Ian Owen - Creative Group Head Seby Gurrieri - Account Director Lydia Gadbury - Senior Account Manager Dan Jenkins - Senior Account Director Lizzie Hutchinson - Account Manager

Contributors

IMI - Deployment Agency

Campaign Overview

When it launched two years ago, O2 Refresh was a groundbreaking proposition: a contract that halves your bill once you’ve paid off your phone handset. It’s a much fairer proposition for customers who don’t like the ‘must get new handset every two years’ cycle, yet still offers those who do want to upgrade early the chance to get the latest shiny handset at any time by paying off the remainder of their contract. And for O2, it means a contracted long-term customer.

So the campaign challenge was to persuade O2 Refresh customers to upgrade early and other customers to switch.

By identifying the exact tipping point when customers started to itch for a new handset, and being there to catch them with O2 Refresh, the campaign drove 24 times the number of early upgrades compared to the same two month period the year before.

Strategy

It is in O2’s interest to lock customers into a new phone as soon as possible. So the team ran quantitative research to identify the moment that, on average, customers started to want a new phone; and at that very moment O2 stepped in to help them get it.

Of course, not every customer is hungry for the latest piece of tech; others are happy to leave it a while. But once they are out of contract they are in the danger zone. So O2 aimed to get them locked into a new contract as soon as they reached the end of their 24 months. This timing was critical, so the campaign needed to identify and use the right channel (email, SMS and outbound calls) for the right customer, based on data insight, with absolute precision.

Creativity

At the very moment O2 anticipated a customer would want a new phone, it told them how they could get it. A live countdown timer and fireworks told them precisely when their contract ended, creating a sense of urgency and anticipation that drove immediate renewal.

Complex data algorithms allowed the campaign to predict the most tempting phone for each customer, based on brand preference, usage and sales trends. Current contract details informed their upgrade cost and generated relevant incentives, such as a 25% discount or the recycle value of their current handset back. Everything was designed to drive immediate response, get the customer locked into a new contract and get them to feel good about it.

In total, 896 messaging variations delivered the most personal countdown possible at exactly the right time for each customer.

Results

New handset uptake has been incredibly successful. More than 130,000 customers took a new handset early, an 8.77% conversion rate.

O2’s ‘sleeper’ audience, who would usually just roll on, paying their contract after it was over and eventually churn, responded with a nearly 300% increase in re-signs. Being upfront, rather than the previous ‘let’s just keep quiet’ approach, challenged them into action – a win-win for both the customer and O2.

The personal and precisiontimed approach made dramatic differences to engagement rates. Click-to-open was nine times higher than benchmark, while consistently high 40%+ open rates and 30% click-throughs at each stage of the journey showed the messaging was engaging, relevant and timely.