Like many brands these days, UK telco, TalkTalk has for the last five years been running campaigns that involve emotive storytelling and audience participation.
Its agency, CHI&Partners, has decided to move the brand on. To something completely different, not just for telcos, but for advertising storytelling and audience participation.
CHI&Partners installed 16 unmanned cameras in a family home and filmed non-stop for two weeks to capture authentic, unscripted footage of one British family – a mum and dad, Julie and Paul; two sons and two daughters, Peter, Harry, Sophie and Lucy; a niece, Daisy; and the family dog, Elvis. Footage that reveals what matters in family life. And yes, it shows that technology and connectivity sit at the epicentre. But not in an overt “we’re telling this story to point out how useful we are” way.
The campaign, This Stuff Matters, is woven together in a series of ten films, with a strapline, X. It matters (for example Telly after a hard day’s work. It matters, or, Boys. They matter). The films spotlight all the little moments in life that matter. The role that TalkTalk’s products and services play in them – from navigating TV dinners with a dog on the sofa, to texting boyfriends, to teaching Auntie Julie how to use her tablet – just is…and just is visible.
The campaign broke on TV and spans video-on-demand, cinema, press, out-of-home, social content and PR. The TV component consists of a launch 60 second spot, with nine more 30 second and 20 second spots appearing from October 10.
This Stuff Matters was created by CHI&Partners’ Danny Hunt, Dan Watts and Rob Webster, and directed by Park Pictures’ Tom Tagholm – the filmmaker behind Channel 4’s 2012 Paralympics campaign, Meet the Superhumans.
The casting process took three months, followed by a creative process which involved going through hundreds of hours’ worth of footage to find all the moments that make up the fabric of family life, with all its ups and downs.
Print and OOH executions will feature photography from Olly Burn, the photographer for CHI&Partners’ Lexus Hoverboard campaign, who joined the family for two weekends in order to capture moments from their day-to-day lives in stills.
Micky Tudor, creative partner at CHI&Partners, noted, “This is a very brave, completely unprecedented campaign, which proves that the small, humble moments of everyday life have as much power to capture our imaginations and move us as do the big, glossy, aspirational scenes of traditional advertising. We’re incredibly proud of it, and we feel we’ve stumbled across some truths about family life today that no other brand has yet touched on. We hope the people of Britain love it as much as we do.”
The campaign marks a significant shift for TalkTalk. It has already begun to focus on existing customers and intends to return to its challenger thinking. As well as reimagining how its advertising tells stories, TalkTalk will also become the only major internet provider to:
- Reward existing customers’ loyalty by giving them the same best-value deals previously only available to new customers. Any customer who has had a TalkTalk package for three months or more can switch and save money if there is a better TalkTalk deal available
- Offer customers the security of fixing their price for 18 months, guaranteeing no broadband price rises
- Scrap separate line rental charges on all packages, and move to a single combined monthly price. TalkTalk has been a long-term advocate of simpler, more transparent ‘all-in’ pricing, and in May 2016 was the first provider to announce its decision to move to ‘all in’.
So far so good. TalkTalk’s focus on existing customers has already led to higher levels of trust, the lowest level of complaints in its history and more customers choosing to stay with TalkTalk than ever before.
Tristia Harrison, managing director for consumer at TalkTalk, commented, “TalkTalk is changing. Nothing matters more to us than our customers and doing right by them is the right thing for our business. We’ve listened hard to what they’ve told us and we’re acting on it. People are fed up of confusing packages and loud advertising, they’re frustrated with deals which shoot up mid contract, and they hate seeing the best deals saved for new customers.
“TalkTalk entered the market as a challenger, and we’ve always saved customers money. But today’s changes are about more than that. We know this is an essential service that really matters to people, so it needs to be simple, affordable, reliable and fair. We’re proud to be the first to make the big changes customers expect and deserve of their telecoms provider today.”
Credits:
Agency: CHI&Partners
Executive creative director: Jonathan Burley
Creative partner: Micky Tudor
Creative director: Jim Bolton
Creatives: Danny Hunt, Dan Watts & Rob Webster
Head of art: Marc Donaldson
Head of art buying: Emma Modler
Lead designer: Loty Ray
Chief strategy officer: Neil Goodlad
Planners: Simon Ringshall & Katherine Barnett
Producer: David Jones
Creative producer: Ruby Hill
Production assistants: Hannah Greene & Alfie Glover-Short
Chief executive officer: Nick Howarth
Business director: Tom McCoy
Account directors: Catrin Tyler & James O’Reardon
Account managers: Maddison Done
Account coordinator: Joel Kaas
Production company: Park Pictures
Director: Tom Tagholm
Executive producer: Stephen Brierley
Producer: Fran Thompson
Production manager: Ananda Grace
DoP: Luke Scott
Camera and sound: Jon Boyce & Team @ Transmission TX
Transcoding of rushes: Mark Purvis @ Mission Digital
Visual post production: MPC
Editing: Stitch
Audio company: Pinewood Studios
Music company: Leland Music
Media Agency: m/SIX
Social Media Agency: Nonsense
PR agency: MHP Communications
Brand: TalkTalk
Managing director – consumer: Tristia Harrison
Marketing director: David Parslow
Head of creative: Paul Godfrey
Head of brand: Mark Moloney
Brand manager: Jeanine Peters
