Buffer Rage

Background

VOO Telecom is a relatively new challenger brand in the Belgian telco market. Now that the internet has become such a part of daily life, the speed of their internet service became increasingly important to Belgians.

VOO Telecom had invested huge sums of money in technology and were able to offer internet speeds up to four times faster than their largest competitor, the market leader.

The brief was clear. Help VOO gain market share and position them as THE telco challenger.

Idea

Over 50% of people experienced ‘buffer rage’ every day, a state of uncontrollable anger induced by the interruption of online content or streamed video.

Everyone knows how it feels to stare at the ever-turning buffering wheel. So, to alert people to the fact that VOO Telecom had Belgium’s fastest internet, the buffering wheel became an advertising medium.

Whenever someone was watching online content and the buffering wheel appeared, it now appeared with the message: Load up to 2 times faster with VOO. Collaborating with Belgium’s biggest media partners, a simple line of code was added to their code to confront users not just with the problem but also the solution.

Results

It’s too soon for meaningful results but within five days there were over one million loads. 70% of VOO’s target audience was reached at precisely the moment they were getting frustrated by the competition’s inferior performance. Search for VOO’s online services trebled.

Our Thoughts

Can’t say it too often. Relevance is what happens when you deliver the right message to the right person at the right time and in the right place.

Happiness have nailed it for their client by creating a completely new medium. Truly, anything and everything can be advertising today from an artist’s forehead (pages 54- 55) to the spinning wheel of buffering failure.