What you need to know:

• Optus has debuted a seven day, no catch network trial offer to market and is backing it up with a nationwide, large-scale marketing campaign designed to take rebuild on and accelerate the brand’s optimism narrative.
• Working in partnership with nine year-strong agency partner Emotive, the campaign sees Australian stars, Jason Donovan and Delta Goodrem, take the mickey out of themselves as consumers imagine what it would be like to be their flatmate or assistant for seven days as some kind fictional ‘catch’.
• For Optus head of consumer marketing, Cameron Luby, the part-brand, part-product campaign is all about signalling to market the confidence the telco has in its network internally, and build on solid work done via several other practical campaigns focused on its unique and value-based product offering, network coverage and the ability to consumers to control their interaction with the network and telco.
• Per Luby: “Now is the time to be more frontfooted, a bit more confident, fun and entertaining.”
• While network trials are definite one marker of success, Optus is equally hoping even the idea of the trial itself will restore some positive sentiment around its brand in market.
• The campaign ecosystem is fullfunnel, stretching from all screens and TVCs through to contextual OOH, radio and digital advertising. A notable highlight in the mix for Luby is its Uber partnership, which encourages sign-ups while waiting for a ride, meal delivery or while in transit.
• Luby also sees product as a solid foundation for brand campaigning, saying “We talk about it like it’s a brand campaign, but it’s really born of a great product. Some of the best brand campaigns are born of great products. That’s what we’re doing here.”

It’s being positioned as a seven-day, no strings attached, first-of-its-kind trial offer designed to demonstrate just how confident Optus is in its network quality. And it’s a bold move by Australia’s second largest telco to inject positive sentiment back into its brand story.

Soft-launched last week and with great advertising fanfare as of this week, Optus has enlisted Delta Goodrem and Jason Donovan in a new part-brand, part-product campaign to promote the product offer to Aussie consumers. The trial is based on an e-sim and allows consumers to literally trial Optus’ network alongside whatever service they happen to be on now, free of charge and without having to supply their credit card details.

The tongue-in-cheek creative, devised by the team at Emotive, sees Goodrem and Donovan taking a playful jab at themselves as prospective triallists fictionally imagine what a ‘no catch’ premise might really entail, and whether it’s too good to be true. In one creative, a female consumer explores what it might be like to be Delta’s PA for a week – complete with a tune by Goodrem about artichokes having ‘heart’. In the other, a male consumer imagines what it’s like to be Jason’s flatmate as the former Neighbours star reminisces about that wedding with Charlene by decking out a room with Ramsay St memorabilia.

The ads start and finish with Optus’ longstanding ‘Yes’ brand asset, and are firmly centred in an Optus product messaging story. But there’s no doubt in Optus head of consumer marketing,  Cam Luby’s mind, that this new work is doing heavy brand sentiment lifting as well.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a new approach for Optus, as innovation and optimism have always been at the core. But what we’ve really been doing over the past few months is very carefully and thoughtfully rebuilding the brand, and we’ve been doing that with a focus on our core products,” Luby tells Mi3. “That has certainly had a tone and executional style that’s very respectful of the fact we are rebuilding.

“What we saw with this opportunity is a chance to get back to who we are as a brand and bring to life that innovation and optimism, while doing something that is fun, entertaining and relays the confidence we have not only in our network, but as a company as well. We’re starting to fire on all cylinders, and this felt like the campaign approach that’s not only right for the market, but right for the Optus brand.”

According to Roy Morgan’s June 2024 quarterly brand trust report, Optus remains the least trusted brand in Australia for the third consecutive quarter. And no one is any doubt it’s been a tumultuous three years for the Optus brand, kicked off by a massive data breach that saw the personal details of 9.8 million customers exposed publicly. A 14-hour network outage in November last year has since seen the telco fined $1.5 million by ACMA for failing to upload required customer information to the Integrated Public Number Database between 2021 and 2023, a penalty that came after it was revealed 2700 customers couldn’t access emergency services via 000 during the outage.

But Luby points to several markers showing rebuilding efforts are working, as well as broader market indicators demonstrating it’s a good time for Optus to be proactively demonstrating value in market. Take how people are feeling right now given the economic condition, cost-of-living challenges and the fact 30 per cent reportedly are struggling to pay their telco bills.

“This product is essentially about giving people the opportunity to try something with no catch and to trial a great value network. That as a marker was one we knew would land,” Luby explains. “The second marker is we can see our brand rebuilding, that the things we’re doing are working, and that we are coming back. This feels like to us like a really important step in that rebuild.”

Luby points to two different campaigns doing the work thus far. One, ‘Why Optus’, is down the line and focuses on explaining how Optus consumers can have “both a great network with great coverage and Australia’s fastest 5G, unique value you can’t get anywhere else, then unique features as well”, he says.

“That’s been a big part of our rebuild – just being very clear about the service we offer people and how it’s unique in the market,” Luby says. “We can see when people are exposed to that, value, network, price and all of those types of metrics go up for us.

“What we’ve also done is been very clear about the controls we give people, particularly around how they can control their digital identity, how they can control the network. They can see the tools that literally put them in control. Those are things people respond to really well as well.”

For example, a complementary product called Network Pulse in the MyOptus app allows users to see network towers around them, whether they’re 4G or 5G capacity, and when they were installed.

“When you go and do the trial, we prompt you to go to your house so you know how’s it performing,” continues Luby. “You don’t have that horrible guesswork of signing up to a new telco, going home, and having that moment of, oh God, is this going to be what I want it to be?”

While he wouldn’t be drawn on the volume of testing going on, you can be sure there’s been plenty of product testing and focus on which elements are most motivating going into the campaign run. Sharing the work internally has also generated great responses according to Luby. Then there’s the hard-working brand assets, Yes and optimism, central to Optus for the last 30 years.

“I don’t know if it’ll be another 30 years, but it’ll certainly be in the next while to come,” says Luby. “If you’re a data nerd, which I can definitely be from time to time, these are some of the strongest and hardest working brand assets in the market. We see a lot of people struggling for brand recognition: That is absolutely not one of our problems. People are very clear when the Optus brand is talking to them. It’s about that level of consistency over a long period of time with something as powerful as ‘yes’.

“Now is the time to be more front-footed, a bit more confident, fun and entertaining. We’ve got a really great innovative product here. We talk about it like it’s a brand campaign, but it’s really born of a great product. Some of the best brand campaigns are born of great products. That’s what we’re doing here.”

Campaign ecosystem

The campaign kicks off via 60-second TVCs this week, with the ecosystem of assets stretching across all screens and a combination of 60/30/15-second versions plus 60-second cinema assets. To get conversation going on social, Optus will tap Donovan and Goodrem’s social channels, then use a full suite of assets for a retargeting strategy. There’s also contextual digital through the funnel including Uber journey and UberEats advertising and out-of-home (buses and train stations), plus radio in the mix. Most is led by Emotive, with retail comms undertaken by Optus’ internal Yes agency.

“One of the things we’re doing I’m quite excited about is we have a partnership with Uber – both Uber Eats and rideshare so while waiting for your car, you’re encouraged to sign up,” says Luby. “In the back of the car? Waiting for your food? It’s playing into that idea of being that easy. For example, we have ads asking if your network is five stars. It lets you sit in the back of an Uber have a bit of fun as opposed to giving us an opportunity to just run an ad.”

Emotive founder and chief, Simon Joyce, says choice of talent was driven by the breadth of performance capability both Donovan and Goodrem have, along with recognition entertainment can do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of securing attention and driving up effectiveness. He notes both Donovan and Goodrem fit the bill of being Australia, iconic and willing to take the mickey out of themselves.

“So often, you think about product campaigns which this is – brand is an expression of product – but you think you’re going to probably be a bit more rational, bland and leave all the fun stuff to the big brand moments. What I love about this particular campaign is we’ve come at it going, hey, this product is so good and so confident, it’s giving us the chance to express ourselves in a slightly different way. The opportunity to entertain as well as deliver a single-minded idea, was a wonderful starting point for a brief,” Joyce says.

“The other thing to Cam’s point is attribution is really important here. We start and end inside the Optus store. But the entertainment levels we’re seeing from our initial runs on this are really high.”

Customer sweet spot

Both artists tracked well against younger demographics – which, considering Scott and Charlene’s wedding was back in 1988, is no mean feat. Optus’ core segments are not surprisingly the largest growing and most willing to switch: Families, young workers, students, and people who have newly arrived in Australia.

“But more broadly, we know right now Australians are seeking value,” says Luby. “Just based on that strong value we offer I think it’s going to resonate beyond the segments we specifically are focused on.

“And we’re very confident with the plans we offer people. If you are that confident, why wouldn’t you remove this constraint? Why wouldn’t you bring this innovation to the market? That’s a sign of how we are feeling internally.”

As to measures of success, there’s an obvious desire to see people take the trial – Luby wouldn’t forecast but said he wants “a lot more than a hundred” getting onboard.

“Even if someone might may not take the trial, the fact it exists, they’ve heard about it and the fact there is no catch, that’s also going to signal a confidence and quality in the Optus brand that will have a brand impact as well,” he says. He adds tangible brand strength and product outcomes are on his scorecard without revealing more – though he’s promised to come to Mi3 if he does an Effie paper in the works.

Luby also intimates we can expect to see more in this vein.

“We have a saying in inside the marketing team of going down by the elevator and up by the stairs. We have been confidently marching up the stairs,” he says. “This campaign, and this product is going to be a huge part of that. And there will be more to come.”