Telstra launches new OOH campaign ‘Four Bars’ via Bear Meets Eagle On Fire, +61 and OMD
To reinforce its position as Australia’s best mobile network, Telstra has launched a visually distinctive out of home campaign called ‘Four Bars’ via Bear Meets Eagle On Fire, +61 and OMD. The campaign is built around the graphic of four network bars.
The campaign has over ten executions, some of which are designed to work as singles, while others are specifically designed to play off one another or as a series of consecutive placements.
Says Brent Smart, chief marketing officer, Telstra: “We don’t need to convince consumers we have the best mobile network, just remind them. And without sounding all brand nerdy, we ultimately want to build memory structures that link our brand to our superior network strength.
“Our aim is to create distinctive work that looks like no other big brand in this country. And in out of home, simplicity is key. Rather than adding more information, we challenge ourselves to reduce and strip it back. It leads to work that is visually striking and confident, like this.”
35 Comments
5 stars for 4 bars
Loved it.
Wish I’d done it.
for what I think it is?…
Pretty for the industry but won’t work for me.
In all fairness, you’re the choir that Telstra doesn’t need to preach to.
from far away
I love it but I just wish the animation went from left to right like the bars loading. Then it would be perfect.
Love it. More work like this.
A cryptic and somewhat poorly-branded reminder of category participation.
Four bars are table-stakes for telcos in cap cities.
It feels like a completely different brand to the one with the stop motion critters.
Great that a brand like this is doing work like this though.
so good. Again
and I mean, no one, will get that these OOHs are about four bars/coverage, unless they read the accompanying press release. I know this because I have asked several people of all ages as we have driven by them, and have got a 100% shrug rate. The ultimate example advertising luvvies talking to themselves about how clever they are. They will probably win multiple awards the world over.
Other brands take note. Do something exactly different to this and stand out.
Saw these in the wild before I saw them on here. I had literally no idea what they were trying to say. My non-advertising partner asked me what they meant and I had to admit I had no idea.
Maybe it was a moment of dimness on my part, but honestly I think these feel like ads made by people who might be starting to believe their own hype and have forgotten to make sure the average person on the street understands in under 2 seconds the point you are trying to make.
Watching my teen and twenty-something react to this, and to the range of ‘animal stories’ TVCs, and they’re totally working.
I think this might be the first example from a large Australian corporate that gets how in a TikTok world you need ‘micro entertainment at scale’.
Congrats to all involved.
The initial work was so good. This is so bad.
This is art direction prettiness at the cost of any chance of average consumers understanding the message. And to be honest, they don’t even look that pretty
They force you to think a tiny itsy little bit to understand the message and that’s why they’re brilliant.
At last.
A major brand trying stuff.
Just remember, Michael Jordan missed more hoops than he scored.
…would’ve taken the stop-motion animals and transferred them to outdoor, like matching luggage. “X is better on a better mobile network.” Eight words, perfect. Except these guys decided to try something better – and should be applauded for it.
B.a.g.s.
DAMN GOOD WORK
That would have to be the dumbest thing that anyone has ever said here. Jordan’s FG percentage (depending on which source you go with) was roughly 50%. Or 1 in 2. Do you think an organisation like Telstra, that spends tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year on marketing would be OK if every second one of their campaigns worked?
at least we can all agree this is one of the misses
Seriously these guys are on fire. Everything they do turns to titanium, so good.
Telstra made the right choice. Another banger!
I definitely like having the full four bars when I’m calling round for a gram.
I also thought Adidas..
Why can’t my agency come up with simple, clever ideas like this.
I want to work there.
Oh yeah, clients love being told that no one will get the ads they have spent millions on straight away, but it’s cool because they just have to think a tiny itsy little bit and then maybe they will get them, because, like, you know, they’re brilliant!!! Nitwit.
i’m all for ‘the gap’ and asking consumers to leap it, but so many people, me included, don’t get this one. different story if it’s for a product that is specifically for a target group who’ll use their own inside knowledge to understand, solve the puzzle, be rewarded and feel a little superior to the rest of the population who don’t get it. but this is a mass brand, mass product message for everyone. feels a shame not to see the wonderful TV concept live in OOH, could’ve been done so neatly with geo relevant, contextual messaging too.
Proof that even the best agencies with amazing clients still produce some absolute stinkers at times. Can’t win them all
But I don’t go out of my way asking Uber drivers and random people their opinions as I don’t have an agenda against this agency.
I doubt that anyone has an agenda against the agency. You must either work for them or with them, or you’re just a bit of a knob. Most people will surely acknowledge that it has done some great work since its inception. (That ROLLiN launch ad was an absolute banger). But this particular piece of work is self-indulgent, navel gazing art for art’s sake.
I only have 3 bars of coverage where I live, and my monthly plan has gone up $5 (to $99). Cheers.
From a distance, it’s giving me Adidas. Up close, it’s giving me disappointment.
Half of the comments here sound like the people who would have argued for a faster horse vs a Model T Ford. It’s different, see how it goes, most get it, those who don’t at least get some amazing branding, but see if it works before deriding it as ‘indulgent’.
You might find that for the past 15 years at least, more people see and hear about great outdoor on the internet than see it in the wild. Most media these days is a means to an end, not the final destination.