Vodafone Australia launches ‘comeback’ campaign with Howatson and Ali Wong
Ali Wong helps Vodafone "show up differently" in new brand campaign
Vodafone Australia is mounting a “comeback”, tapping US comedian and Beef star Ali Wong to front a new campaign aimed at re-establishing the telco as a serious challenger post-TPG merger.
Unveiled today, the multi-channel campaign sets Wong against two distinctly Australian backdrops, delivering a simple message from Vodafone: don’t pay for what you don’t need.
The campaign marks the first major brand work following a shake-up within TPG’s marketing team, with Rebecca Darley joining from Domain Group as CMO at the end of 2024, and Howatson and Co picking up the creative account after a subsequent pitch.
What a tone deaf ad, there’s plenty of people “out here” who use, need and deserve access to telecommunications. The “nothing out here” is where your food is grown. The fighting we have to do just to get basic access to phone & internet service is constant. Vodafone clearly don’t care and would prefer to write us off and flip the bird at us at the same time.
Absolute shocker of an ad, in this climate having an American shouting at an Australian audience that there’s “nothing out here” in our regional and remote areas is a joke and completely misses the mark.
This is an offensive take, if as a company you just want to service densely populated areas justifying it by diminishing regional and rural Australia is offensive and insulting. People living in those areas deserve services and are more dependent on reliable telcos for safety, emergencies and to minimise social isolation. It also implies As a company they have no obligation to provide their paying customers with connectivity if the choose to travel beyond their populous locations.
Such a poor taste ad. All very us over here matter and lets not worry about any one who doesn’t live where we do . A real shocker of a message.
Wow, this is awful! Who is Ali Wong?! Missed the mark here with an American person as lead talent. Dislike everything about this ad. All the money they would have spent on talent fees and making this too – what a waste!
Red dress, red eski, red shirt.
Ranting yank gnorantly dissing the outback. Odd choice.
Its too real life to be funny.
Is it wrong to barrack for the emu?
were there any australians leading the strategy and creative of this campaign? How can you exclude people who live and travel through remote areas? It just highlights how bad Vodafone has always been.
I live in a semi-rural area and see this ad when streaming 9Now, making me think it’s usually targetted to city audiences. I understand this ad might somewhat appeal to a person who lives their life without seeing a cow. But what I don’t understand is that I can get Telstra coverage on a customer network like Belong for so much cheaper than Vodafone with its abysmal coverage. The only advantage to going with a city-focussed telco would be that it is significantly cheaper than one that offers the same thing plus the security of coverage of you ever go for a drive. This has turned me off ever considering Vodafone if I moved in to the city.