Telstra Bigpond Case

Dale Eastman
23361816

MKX3621: Telstra Bigpond Case

Telstra Bigpond was faced with the challenge of moving away from traditional methods of advertising internet, the market had two main approaches of ‘brand relevancy’ and ‘pricing/promotional’ for typical advertising means. This resulted in many companies focusing on two key points which were either speed or price and often a combination of both. While Telstra was typically a telecommunications brand, they had to create a new brand to give an identity to their internet services which was supplied under the Bigpond brand name. Telstra Bigpond was typically priced higher than its competitors and as such had to show a benefit for that price premium.

While many other companies were running campaigns with rational messages on speed and price, Telstra Bigpond took a different approach by creating campaigns targeted toward an emotional level and stood to connect with consumers and how they use internet and the important of that, rather than what they’re getting and the price. The core insight to the campaign was focused on Telstra Bigpond providing the tools for children to get the best education, this was taking a very different direction to traditional internet advertising and having a strong emotional approach to the family parent demographic.

Critical success factors for the campaign were to drive the brand awareness of Bigpond over the unpopular Telstra parent company which was undergoing heavy unpopular public opinion, to raise market share over the 12 month campaign period, to elevate above the ‘retail rut’ while maintaining the price premium of their product, all while creating an iconic Australian campaign.

The USP campaign focuses on the key point of parents giving their children the best chance in life through using Bigpond services to find the right answers. This plays on an emotional level with parents as all parents want to give their children the best opportunities in life. While this position was successful for the campaign, there was potential to cause angst among their key demographic by showcasing a parent as being ‘dumb’ and not really having the answers that their children need. This is demonstrated by the father in the campaign simply making up the reply to child’s question to ‘keep the rabbits out’, showcasing a parents inability to answer a child’s question.