“No really, I am”
Telstra has just openly admitted that it needs to make a personal connection with customers, instead of focusing too much on technology. Telstra have spent the last three years pumping advertisements out related to new broadband and phone technology, without caring too much about how their brand is perceived by us Aussies.
In an attempt to win back the hearts of customers, Telstra have just started running a new ad campaign, in time for the Olympics, that uses the famous ‘I Am Australian’ song, written by Bruce Woodley, to associate the Telstra brand with Australian pride. This strategy might sound familiar because it’s the same one they used back in 2004.
The new ad campaign launched on the World Youth Day weekend and features a new recording of the song by Sydney band The Botanics. The catchy commercial features cinematic images of regular Australians and actually works due to the close proximity of the Olympics. The ad should work to restore the emotional connection that customers once had with Telstra, before it spent all its advertising budget trying to make Australia understand just what the Next G Network really was. The goal of the campaign is to make Australians feel proud and patriotic as the Olympics draws closer. Australians must soon unite against a common enemy and Telstra realise this.
In the upcoming weeks Telstra will release a follow up commercial that uses another recording of the song, this time by popular singer Katie Noonan. The sequel will feature a family that is brought together by the birth of a child. Instead of being patriotic and powerful, this ad will focus more on family bonding, in an effort to drive home the fact that Telstra is a family-friendly brand.
