StarHub's Sparky Campaign

Changing Perceptions & Building Emotional Affinity

It was in 2002 that Singapore’s favourite Jack Russell terrier, Sparky, first burst onto the scene, running away with many Singaporeans’ hearts. This was the campaign I oversaw, developed and executed to showcase StarHub’s improved mobile network coverage.

Those were the Telco Traffic Light days, or at least that‘s how I liked to call it. There was the Red, Orange and Green—StarHub. As the challenger brand in a saturated market dominated by the Red, StarHub was fearless and innovative in its strategy. It wanted to give “Power to the People” and rocked the market by being the first to offer Free Incoming Calls on mobile phones.

The strategy worked. StarHub gained 200,000 mobile subscribers within seven months of its launch in April 2000, beating its target by five months.

Along the way, it continued to increase the number of base stations to improve its mobile network coverage, but a troubling situation was unfolding. Customers were complaining about dropped calls and spotty coverage.

Back then, the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore would release quarterly Quality of Service reports. The latest one, which was the prompt for this campaign, indicated that StarHub had 100% Call Success Rates, 100% Voice Quality, 99.98% Network Coverage and 0% Dropped Calls.

So why were people still complaining?

It was clear that we needed to address this. I knew it wasn’t a matter of just stating the glowing results from IDA. I felt that no matter how much we pushed statistics in front of people’s faces, they wouldn’t accept it. People were angry, disappointed and distrustful of StarHub.

But first, I needed to understand who was complaining and about what. So, with the help of my marketing, customer service and sales colleagues, we set about doing quick surveys and man-on-the-street interviews.

We learned two things:

  1. Interestingly, newer subscribers were not complaining.
  2. The complaints were from the initial subscribers and subscribers of other telcos who had heard complaints from their friends.

That led me to two insights:

  1. First impressions are hard to change. Addressing Negative Perceptions was important.
  2. The power of Word-of-Mouth. No need for first-hand experience, just hearing friends complain shaped perceptions.

With that in mind, I set about briefing the agency, Batey Ads, to come up with a campaign that was subtle, yet clear in the messaging of how StarHub’s bobile network coverage is everywhere. Most importantly, I needed the campaign to evoke emotions, I wanted something that would really create affinity amongst Singaporeans for the StarHub brand.

The agency had come up with two other concepts that were far more straightforward and maybe, on paper, a better choice to show off the improved coverage. In fact, we tested the three concepts with focus groups and Sparky was not the winner. It was a safe and typical (read: boring) concept that was picked.

But I felt that this did not match up with StarHub’s creative, innovative and fun spirit at all! Plus, I was adamant that we needed something that could really soften the negative mood and elicit warmth.

The concept that I thought was the most compelling was the one where a mischievous dog swallowed his owner’s mobile phone and ran off. As the owner kept calling his mobile phone, the phone in the dog’s belly would keep ringing, no matter where he ran in Singapore, thus subtly implying full coverage. It got the message across but not in an “in-your-face” way.

So, I went about convincing my bosses, including the CEO at that time, that this was the campaign we needed and thankfully, they believed in me, and we went for it. And that was how Sparky was born.

The campaign was completely 3600—comprising TV Commercials, Print ads, Outdoor Media such as Billboards, Ads on buses and trains, in Cinemas and Online. Our Media agency, Zenith, masterfully managed this with us. We launched with a mysterious teaser campaign, as if Sparky’s owner had taken out a Missing Dog ad in the papers, leaving a phone number for anyone with a lead to call in. This was followed up soon after with the “reveal” prints ads and the TVC.

All this immediately created a huge buzz for StarHub, and soon the whole nation was talking about Sparky. Heck, there suddenly seemed to be an increase in Jack Russells running around Singapore!

 

Sparky TVC Singapore Shoot
Sparky and me

It Wasn’t Just a Cute Ad.

The thing is though, Sparky was never just a TVC or an ad campaign. It was not good enough to have a cute ad, I needed people to experience the improvement in mobile network coverage for themselves. We needed to bring the experience on-the-ground. I had several other supporting ideas that, together with my colleagues, agencies and partners, brought to life the real messaging behind the adorable ads.

1. StarHub Coverage Challenge—Inspired by the Pepsi/Coke challenge, we ran Sparky roadshows, featuring three mobile phones, equipped with the different SIM cards of each telco operator. The operator logos were hidden, so no one knew which phone belonged to which operator. People were asked to make a phone call on each phone and to guess which one belonged to which operator. Over 75% couldn’t tell the difference, which reinforced the fact that StarHub’s coverage was as good as the others’.

2. Free Calls in Taxis­—I wanted to drive home the message of seamless coverage everywhere, so I conceptualised a plan to fit taxis in Singapore with mobile phones (working together with Nokia) encouraging passengers to use the phones to make calls while in the taxis. This was to prove the confidence StarHub had in its network coverage and address perceptions of the high percentage of dropped calls.

3. Spot Sparky SMS Contest—we created print ads featuring Sparky “spotted” at various venues around Singapore and asked people to guess his location. We received over 11,000 SMSes within two weeks, not a small number back in the day!

4. Sparky Car Decals—we partnered with a major petrol station chain to hand out decals and worked with a radio station to spot cars with the decal to give away prizes. At one point, you couldn’t drive past five cars without spotting Sparky.

Riding on the success of the “local” Sparky campaign, I extended this to cover StarHub’s International Roaming services the next year, which showed Sparky around the world, indeed making waves everywhere he went! Sparky was such a success to StarHub that he continued to appear in many other campaigns over the next decade.

At the end of the day, ask anyone who was in Singapore in the early 2000s if they know Sparky, and I’m guessing it’s going to be a yes. Many paws were involved in making the Sparky campaign a success and I am sure anyone who worked on this with me would count it as one of their most fond/enjoyable/proud moments in their career. I certainly do!

And Here Are Some Juicy Tidbits about the Sparky Campaign!
1

There were two Sparkies on set. The cute model who ate the phone and was the face of all the ads and the athletic stunt dog because the cute one wasn’t built for running and jumping!
2

In order to get her to eat the phone, we rubbed tasty chicken all over it so that she would start licking. Then cut to phone being "swallowed"!
3

I named the owner Jeff because, well, I had a crush on a boy named Jeff at that time.
4

We produced Sparky plush toys that we gave out for free at our events. They were such a hit that some enterprising company duplicated our toy and started selling them!
5

Once again, I played a part in choosing names. Matt Gellar, the "reporter" in the newspaper article was named as such because I was a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and well, Sarah Michelle GELLAR!

The Original Sparky TVC

Watch Sparky in Action here!

The Sparky Roaming TVC

Watch Sparky Ring Around the World!