CCO: Susie Jaramillo
CD/Copy: Laly Boiso
AD: Harry García
AWARDS DAVEY AWARDS 2011: SILVER EFFIE 2011
The Challenge
Vonage had to enter a space already saturated by big name competitors, with much larger budgets, to convince US Hispanics that its unlimited calling was the smartest way of calling back home.
But as many competitors relied on the ol’ bait and switch tactics to lure new consumers in, and then ‘surprise’ them with undisclosed fees and high per minute rates, Hispanic consumers were very skeptical…
The Background
Vonage‘s general market retail campaign was out years before the Hispanic specific outreach began. But contrary to the GM target, our Hispanic consumers were older, less tech-savvy, heavy international long-distance callers, price conscious, and heavy users of calling cards.
Very few were familiar with Vonage, and of those few even less understood how the service worked and the savings it represented.
How we did it
An initial study told us that Hispanics didn’t even know what was “the right way” to pronounce Vonage. So, we realized we had to make it more digestible creating a signature that worked as a memorable mnemonic device and as a brand statement at the same time.
We based it on a well-known selling phrase from the street-markets: Bueno, Bonito, Barato or “good, beautiful, inexpensive”, but with an irreverent twist, we slid the brand into by switching the “b’s” for “v’s” (ignoring blatantly the proper Spanish spelling). Thus “Vueno Vonito Varato” was born.
Results
From there we created a completely original multimedia retail campaign for the Hispanic market that was a big success and won a 2011 Davey award for its effectiveness and an Effie 2011 runner-up nomination.
