After verizon's 2014 rebrand, we looked to further delineate Fios from Wireless by launching the Wired Differently platform. Simply put, Fios is not Cable. It's wired differently, so everything we do, should be a bit, well, different. I led the digital portion of that.
There are two parts to my contributions on Fios. The first was creative (high volume digital and direct response for the entire breadth of their sales funnel), and the second, a complete overhaul of their digital creative strategy, which is further down the page and super boring for anyone not interested in that.
The tone of each ad was meant to be quick and clever, without being witty, and the image being smart and representative. We took advantage of unique placements like roadblocks and high impact units.
Our animated display units were intended to be different as well. We used a lot of synced roadblocks, transparent overlays and manipulation of content to grab a user's attention.
This simple banner (staging link) uses a colored focal point that lets the user read the copy at 400 words per minute. The banner then lets a person pull in the article on the page into the banner to speed read that as well. It was the highest performing display ad for Fios in 2016, returning more clicks and conversions than any other ad.
We had fun with our competitive messaging. This synced roadblock with a transparent overlay was a direct dig at Optimum and their parent company Cablevision, owners of the Knicks. This ad ran on NY Sports sites with Knicks articles for the week leading up to the 2016 NBA Draft.
Telling someone that Fios is faster isn't really that effective. We sought to show people that it's faster by letting them test their speeds inside of a rich media ad, then comparing their speed to what you can do with Fios. These ads were meant to be a bit lower funnel and drive to an offer.
This mobile ad looked to show the difference between Fios' 100% fiber-optic network and cable's copper network through an accelerometer enabled maze. Our approach to mobile ads were that they were about engagement and brand perception, not closing a sale.
This mindless infinite swiping mobile ad sought to put Fios' faster speeds into terms people could actually understand because no one really gets "we're faster" without context.
To battle complacency (the internet I have is good enough), we used unbranded display ads and bought search terms around common internet pain points. To give authenticity to the strategy, the ads and search results would drive to 3rd party articles that painted Fios or fiber optics in a positive light or as a solution to their issues. So, it may drive to Quora, or WikiHow, or rankings on PC Mag. From there, we would cookie the users and retarget them later with educational brand messaging and offers.
Here's the issue: on a retail account such as verizon, the clients expect every piece of creative to solve all of their sales problems. I sought to highlight the importance of nurturing leads and building a smarter consumer through strategic planning, placements and retargeting.
I created a digital playbook, in a physical binder, that I reviewed with the clients on a quarterly basis. Adding in and pulling out pages based on what was and wasn't working, current testing results, best practices and dissections of top and bottom performers.
When sales were soft or there was an urgent need, instead of panicking and reinventing the wheel, we just referred to our playbook on how to handle these situations.
The goals were simple:
Instead of every piece of creative driving to a sale, our recommendation was to drive to the next step of a user journey.
Instead of one piece of creative housing all of the current messaging, we only added in the messaging needed for that stage of the user journey, and added more in either down the funnel or through retargeting.
Every stage of the user journey having the option to jump to the sale, or have a landing destination, whether a marketing landing page or social media to drive to, to summarize that marketing phase.
Only using certain types of creative at certain user journey stages, showing the equal importance of awareness creative and not just acquisition display ads.
I’ve since leveraged this approach for other clients, helping to revamp strategies for GoDaddy, Cigna and the Marines.
I'd love to go over this further if you're interested. Feel free to email me to set something up.