The Great Christmas Hack: An Interview with the Strategists
Holidays and New Year’s create a space for many families to spend some long-awaited time together and celebrate the end of an often busy year. As individuals eagerly reach out to their families during this time, the rapid surge in calls strain networks and creates a communication gridlock
Claro Colombia
is the leading telecommunications operator in Colombia. This market leader title comes with great power, but even greater service issues–which become ever more evident on the holidays when congestion of calls hits, leaving Claro's lines to collapse and customers unable to reach to their loved ones. The data tells us that there is a cultural component to this issue
This is where Havas Colombia stepped in, coming up with just the solution to relieve this congestion and address the broader connectivity problem at hand. We interviewed the team behind this meaningful campaign to learn how they made millions of calls happen before midnight. Read on to learn insights from Havas Media and Havas Creative Colombia’s Diego Tovar , Executive Creative Director, Oscar González , Creative Director, Alma Flórez , Creative Director, Margarita Arevalo , Business Unit Lead, and Stevens Pardo , Associative Creative Director.
What inspired the initiation of this campaign?
Our client consistently reported an increase in service complaints on Christmas and New Year’s, but the problems do not correspond to any platform issues. Rather, the issue lies in several calls being made to familial contacts at the last minute and at the same time, congesting the network.
Margarita Arévalo
What can you tell us about your integration of traditional (Radio & TV) and modern (smartphones) media?
This campaign is a great example of how modern and traditional technologies can be integrated to improve the media experience. In the first 5 seconds of radio channel and TVs across Colombia, we included voice commands to activate nearby cell phones to call loved ones before congestion hours.
Diego Tovar
How did you know who to activate calls to?
By analyzing Claro’s database, we were able to identify the most recurring family contacts of the users: mom, dad, grandfather, grandmother, brother, and sister were the ones selected.
Stevens Pardo
What surprised you most about the responses?
We realized we not only impacted our client's users but also the clients of the other 4 teleoperators in Colombia, activating calls to loved ones for all Colombians regardless of their cellular operator. We were happy to hear that we were able to create connectivity between even more families.
Alma Flórez
With 20 million devices activated across 13 radio stations and 5 telecommunications operators throughout Colombia, 10 million outgoing calls were made before midnight per day. This campaign led to 25% fewer calls to customer service lines compared to the year before, and overall increase brand memorability and image for Claro.
The key to the success of this campaign can largely be attributed to the excellent integration between media and creative teams. Placing the idea in an integrated environment with diverse perspectives no doubt led to its innovative execution, and by prioritizing the broader issue at hand
Watch the full campaign here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-8sr_3XcGc
Recent accolades of the Great Christmas Hack campaign: