Gist : Q4 generates 4X sales of all other time frames for Verizon in the US. Faced with heavy competition on brand affinity and sales from TMobile, Verizon needed to reach new audiences and keep current customers.

Verizon needed a bold idea; It couldn’t be just another rinse and repeat holiday sale. All leading brands had similar plans and phones.

INSIGHT : People didn’t want yet another holiday offer. They wanted a brand to augment the feeling of the holidays outside of just pushing a price and product. They wanted a brand to show them the magic of the season.

• After pouring through sales data, customer feedback and metrics, Verizon wasn’t doing anything wrong—but wasn’t doing anything new.

• It was a tough sell to get a telecom giant to agree to give something away in their most critical sales period. But we did.

• Customers needed a reason to pick the brand outside of price and selection—which was parity in the category.

• We developed digital interactive holiday “touchy-book” where families could create an avatar to go through a holiday story experience about a lost elf.

• The story had sound, movement and zero sales pitches—the brand only appeared once in the intro.

• There were no phones or product of any kind in the story.

• We even used precious digital retail space on the holiday site to market it.

Results:

The risk paid off:

• Story experience was the 2nd most interacted with item on the holiday landing page

• Performed 2X over expectations

• New customer acquisition increased 8%

• Customer retention held steady

Happy holidays, indeed