Local cellphone operators Vodacom and Cell C are locked in an advertising battle after both companies rebranded.
On April 1 2011, Vodacom officially rebranded, in the process changing its signature colour from blue to red.
About 70 000 revellers spent the day and the night partying to the sounds of local and international DJs at Vodacom’s official launch at Orlando Stadium. On a huge screen erected in the stadium, they were shown the famous Ponte Tower in the Johannesburg CBD, which has long been blue, being transformed to red.
Critics speculated that Vodacom, which has spent more than R400-million on the rebranding campaign, bought the rights to use the colour from Cell C after it came out with its aggressive new campaign, in which Cell C switched to black and appointed comedian Trevor Noah as its “customer experience officer” or “CEO”. At the media briefing held in Sandton, Vodacom Group chief executive Pieter Uys dispelled this rumour, saying that he had not heard about it.
Vodafone holds a 65% share in Vodacom South Africa, which has become the first company with majority Vodafone interests to keep its name after switching to the Vodafone colours. The new logo now resembles its parent company.
Since its founding in 1984, Vodafone has acquired Talkland, Peoples Phone and Astec Communications and Air Touch Communications, and in 2000 merged with Mannesmann, owner of the largest German mobile network giving the brand a more visible presence in the UK. In 1999 it had merged its United States wireless assets with Bell Atlantic Corp to Verizon Wireless, and in 2002 rebranded Japan’s J-sky Mobile Internet as Vodafone Live.
“This is not just about the colour, but also what is happening behind the scenes,” said Uys. The company has redesigned its stores, restructured its call centres and embarked on a blizzard of a media campaign announcing the new colours, and promised to connect more South Africans to its improved 3G-based network.
The idea, Uys said, is to provide a service that will be “simpler and faster”.
The advertising for the campaign incorporates familiar characters from Vodacom’s previous adverts over the past 17 years, including Mo the Meerkat from “I like the way you move” and the leopard print-clad Michael de Pinna, also known as the “Yebo Gogo” man.
But while this happens, the two companies seem to be stepping on each other’s turf when it comes to their aggressive advertising campaigns.
The African Business News Review reported that Cell C has begun to “mock” Vodacom’s new campaign in its Google adverts. Vodacom, whose advertisements state that “Red is better” was rebutted by Cell C who claimed in their own adverts that “Red means stop”. Cell C’s slogan continues to be “The power is in your hands” while Vodacom’s new slogan is “Power to you”.
The Mail and Guardian made several attempts to contact Cell C executives for comment on the spat but the company declined, saying, “it is not for us to comment”.
They also denied that Cell C’s new advertising campaign mocked Vodacom.
A new advert by Cell C — which was aired a about a week after Vodacom’s launch — features Trevor Noah walking past an old, blue sports car being spray-painted from blue to red, saying: “Recently, a 17-year-old cell network changed their colours — nice, but what’s actually under the hood?”
He is then seen walking towards a sleek black sports car saying, “It takes more than a lick of paint to be South Africa’s number one network, don’t you think?”
Tech Central — a technology news website — noted the promptness with which Cell C’s new ad campaign targeted Vodacom.
Draft FCB, the advertising agency handling Vodacom’s new campaign, lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) against Cell C on April 11 2011, for its ad campaign. According to Tech Central, Draft FCB’s CEO, John Dixon, accused former creative director Grant Jacobson of using confidential Vodacom information after he left FCB and joined rival DDB SA, which is working on the Cell C campaign, as its executive creative director.
However, the chief executive of DDB SA, Glen Lomas, who spoke to the M&G on behalf of Jacobson, argued that Vodacom’s rebranding was already in the public domain before the launch, saying that “we have done exactly what any other agency would have done, with that brief … if you say to me nobody in the country knew that they [Vodacom] were changing to red, that would be insanity.”
DDB SA began shooting the Cell C adverts on April 1, the night Vodacom had its official launch.
According to Lomas, DDB SA pride’s itself on having high standards and upholding self-regulatory methods within the agency. “We hired Jacobson because he has an excellent understanding of the telecommunications industry, not because he would be bringing in trade secrets. We would never hire someone with such low morals.”
On Friday, Tech Central reported that on April 14 2011, the ASA ruled in favour of Vodacom against Cell C’s advertising campaign, and the ASA would consider sanctions against them should it find that Cell C’s “behaviour indicates a pattern of deliberate and/or flagrant abuse”. According to the ASA ruling, if Cell C wishes to flight any future campaigns, they would need to seek the ASA’s authorisation first.
Cell C has also been requested to suspend this advertising campaign.
Locally, Vodacom has a customer base of about 39,6-million people and about 182-million customers across South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho and Mozambique — making it the second largest mobile network company in Africa, second to MTN, while Cell C is the smallest in South Africa with just over 7-million customers.