The objective was simple: tell people they can get a new phone at SaskTel for $0 upfront. Sweet deal? Absolutely. Just not one that’s highly differentiated in the market. But hey, that’s where we come in.
We needed to find a fresh way to communicate the $0 phone message, while ensuring the spot could stand the test of time and be paired with different promotions in the future.
After looking at competitors and other ads for $0 phones, it was easy to see the typical angle was about spreading out the cost of a new device. But $0 phones presented another advantage: get what you want now, without the wait. And who doesn’t love a little instant gratification?
Looking at our original storyboard feels a bit like a time warp. Created and pitched just before The End Times, our original concept relied heavily on being—gasp!—unmasked in public. Suddenly, we were thrust into the era of pivoting, and a COVID-friendly variation of the creative was quickly conceived.
Because we needed the video to have a long shelf life, we didn’t want to feature masks (oh how young and naïve we were). This meant setting the scenes inside a house—so we built one. Well, three rooms. Working closely with our besties at Play Creative and a mind-blowing set dec team, we made the Regina Soundstage feel like home.
Using a mixture of practical tricks and post-production magic, we created scenes that showcased the convenience of a world without waits. Kids miraculously ready in a moment, clothes instantaneously dried, and muffins from batter to baked in a second flat. To back the bright, cheery visuals and cram even more exceptional SK talent into the spot, we scored it with custom music by local artist Will Quiring.
There was plenty to glean from the making of this video. First and foremost, if you need seamless continuity when splicing together two shots, don’t use shag carpet.
Secondly, all placements saw strong performance! This included 5.28 million impressions overall—and 1.46 million video views. Our Content Strategist’s grandma also told all her friends about it.
If you want to get more technical, think about it this way: you know when you’re watching a YouTube video, and you forget to skip the ad? You become part of a statistic known as the “view-through-rate” (VTR). We had a VTR of 45.31%, 5-10% up from the average on YouTube. On Spotify, we saw something similar—187,651 completed video views, resulting in a completion rate of 86.44%.
The gist: people weren’t skipping through, even when they could, and that’s the highest compliment of all.
We needed to find a fresh way to communicate the $0 phone message, while ensuring the spot could stand the test of time and be paired with different promotions in the future.
