Cell C has unveiled its latest advertising campaign, dubbed Make it #Epic, which it hopes will inspire South Africans to "vote with their feet" and join its 18-million strong subscriber base.
The campaign, which kicks off with a television advert during Carte Blanche on Sunday, incorporates and builds on the company's previous "Believe" campaign and will include what marketing head Doug Mattheus says is an elevated social media and online push, from 1 November.
The latest ad drive comes seven months after the company ramped up its marketing efforts in what it said at the time was an aggressive drive to get consumers to change to its network in 2014.
Mattheus says the Make it #Epic drive, which will run for four months, is a "total 360-degree" campaign, steeped in a heavy online presence.
The said TV commercial, which took eight days to film, features 824 extras, 72 crew members, 29 celebrities and two super cars. The new BlackBerry Passport, which was unveiled last week, also features prominently. Mattheus says various other handset partners were also approached with regards to an advertising partnership that would showcase their products - including Apple in light of its new iPhone 6 - but BlackBerry took the opportunity in the end.
Consumer cause
Cell C, which has struggled for years to gain a foothold in a market dominated by Vodacom and MTN since 1994, has more recently seen significant subscriber growth, doubling its base in two years - to 18.1 million - and surpassing former CEO Alan Knott-Craig's initial goal.
Mattheus says the industry remains tough, with Cell C facing "formidable competitors", but "we like to think we are holding our own".
Cell C CEO Jose Dos Santos, who took the reins from Knott-Craig after the latter suffered a mild stroke in November, says the company's marketing campaign is a true showcase of Cell C as the consumer champion - a title the company has punted since it started a mobile price war 2012.
This status has, however, recently been questioned by consumers, following two moves the company recently made that may have an adverse impact on their pockets.
In April, Cell C announced its previously homogenous data rate structure would no longer exist, and that out-of-bundle (OOB) data would in future cost 99c per MB (as opposed to 15c).
Shortly afterwards, it emerged the operator had increased the billing increments on its data products to 25KB, which Cell C said at the time was in line with international standards. This can be compared per-minute versus per-second billing on voice calls and means users may end up with higher bills (in bundle) or reach OOB rates quicker, as data transfers used are rounded off to, in cases, higher amounts than they previously were.
Mattheus says, while it was a difficult decision for the operator to make, the billing moves signal a shift in strategy away from the "vanilla" approach of old, to a promotion-based offering that can be tailored according to consumers' individual choices.
This week the company was hit with a blow with the Independent Communications Authority of SA's new termination rate regulations, which curb the asymmetry Cell C had hoped would give it a leg up against Vodacom and MTN, which hold the lion's share of the market.
Share