During his time at Rowland, Rob was engaged by Vodafone Australia for five years, supporting the business across the Queensland market with activity ranging from sponsorship leveraging, product media relations, stakeholder engagement, event management, small business customer education, and issues management.
Our engagement came during a period of intensive competition for the mobile market with Vodafone becoming the default ‘challenger’ brand to fixed-line operators Telstra and Optus. Vodafone recognised the opportunity to entice more single owner and small business operators to its network by promoting the benefits of a mobile work space.
Services provided
- Media relations
- Sponsorship leveraging
- Campaign development
- Marketing and advertising collateral
- Social media management
Beyond positive media exposure, the business celebrated significant growth in market share (rising from 6.5% to 10%), revenue by 13% and a reduction in customer ‘churn’ from almost 20% to 14%
We prepared a comprehensive communication program to target business operators across the state. At the heart of the program was an education campaign that highlighted key benefits beyond the technology and network information, focussing as much on the emotional and flow-on effects associated with a mobile ‘workspace’.
These benefits included the creation of more ‘free time’ thanks to the ability to review and send emails on the go, with media case studies focusing on business operators that could spend more time with their family or undertaking social pursuits as a result.
In addition to media case studies (tailored by both geography and industry/sector), direct mail, events, thought leadership opinion pieces, and speaking engagements contributed to educating customers about the benefits of Vodafone’s network.
Media coverage across a range of print, audio and visual mediums continued to increase year-on-year during our tenure to the point that Vodafone’s State General Manager eventually secured a full-time presenter role with 4BC radio.
