Summary
Talk360, an app-powered affordable international communications company was founded in 2016.
They wanted to increase brand awareness by adding outdoor advertising to their marketing mix. But traditional options like billboards and street-pole ads were expensive and logistically difficult to obtain.
Additionally, Talk360 wanted to get more people to join their referral force by becoming "Talk360 Agents".
MotionAds was uniquely positioned to answer both of these challenges at the same time. Because only we could:
- Enhance brand awareness through moving billboards on the back of delivery bikes that create dynamic marketing exposure in Talk360’s key target areas.
- And our built-in sales force of drivers (many of whom are foreign nationals) were the perfect people to become Talk360 agents – spreading awareness of the brand and adding more customers through flyers and word of mouth about Talk360’s great deals.
We used data-driven targeting to identify the best performing areas and then match the perfect drivers to cover those areas thanks to our partnership with Uber Eats, which gives us the ability to access their entire network of drivers across the country.
That means we could deliver 31 new recruitment agents using our built-in salesforce with no extra recruiting, logistics or admin for Talk360.
Our 6 month campaign facilitated over 30 million brand impressions*. Which contributed to an impressive 130% revenue growth and 167% increase in customer acquisition for 2022. (Reference)
These great results, aided by our outdoor advertising and built-in army of affiliate agents, contributed towards Talk360 securing an additional R53 million in seed round funding just 5 months after their campaign started.
About Talk360
Talk360 is a communications company that offers easy, reliable, and affordable international calling via their Talk360 app.
Founded in 2016, they allow people to connect with loved ones who don’t have internet access by providing calls to any landline or mobile phone in over 190 countries.
In 2021, Talk360 connected over 2 million people to their friends and family, without the usual exorbitant international calling fees.
Talk360 is committed to creating equal opportunities for all. They uplift micro-enterprises by creating jobs through its agent referral program. And they contribute to poverty reduction and resilience by providing communication technology for everyone.
MotionAds and Talk360 are a match made in heaven.
We share the same set of values and were thrilled to work with people who bring such positive impact to underserved communities.
Talk360’s Challenge
Talk360’s offering was a new concept in South Africa. Their target audience was largely unaware of how much they could save by using their app.
So Talk360’s primary challenge was to reach more people and get the word out about their app.
Or, as our client Jonathan Katende put it,
“We wanted to gain broad exposure of our brand while converting new customers.”
Talk360 looked to enhance brand awareness through a multi-medium marketing campaign.
They had radio and digital ads covered, but needed an outdoor advertising solution for enhanced brand awareness in densely-populated target areas.
The problem was that typical outdoor mediums like billboards and street-pole ads were expensive, and proved logistically difficult to secure at the same time as their other marketing channels.
Talk360 were also looking for people to become “Talk360 agents” by joining their referral force.
They would receive commission for participating in referral marketing activities such as:
- Creating awareness of the Talk360 app
- Helping people download the Talk360 app and become customers
- Selling Talk360 airtime
- Participating in on-site activations
Why MotionAds?
Because not only do we share the same values of social upliftment as Talk360, we offer the perfect solution to their Marketing challenges.
Dynamic Exposure to enhance brand awareness
“For me it was really the additional dynamic exposure we received on the roads in comparison to static billboards that had to be strategically spaced and made available.” - Jonathan Katende
The branded Top Boxes on our delivery bikes is an eye-catching outdoor medium. One that the Talk360 creative team used to their full advantage.
And, thanks to our partnership with Uber Eats, we have access to data on their entire network of drivers across the country.
That gives us special advantages no one else has, like pairing the right driver to the brand, and our ability to shift drivers to expand into new strategic geographic areas.
We offer something no billboard can – movement and flexibility.
Our bikes are always on the go, creating dynamic brand awareness touch-points throughout vast target areas like JHB’s and PTA’s CBDs as well as CPT’s Northern Suburbs.
Billboards are fixed, both by geography and amount. It’s always the same billboard, in the same place, without any way to increase the number of billboards or move them to a new area.
And it’s not difficult to acquire advertising space with us, like it can be with static billboards.
Data-driven targeting to identify the best performing areas
Our data and tracking technology really sets us apart from other outdoor media agencies. As you can see in Talk360’s GPS and impact app.
We give our clients the ability to see the return on their investment by viewing just how many kilometres and deliveries were happening on a daily basis and at month-end.
When it came time for the campaign renewal, we integrated Talk360’s data into our own.
They told us which spazza shops sold the most Talk360 vouchers. And we then used that to produce a hot-spot map that enabled us to identify new target zones that would deliver the biggest bang for their buck.
This also meant that people seeing the outdoor ads in these areas were never far away from a participating spazza shop where they could buy the vouchers.
This proved a very effective way to pinpoint the most powerful zones and expand to gain more profit and attention from foreign national communities, who were the bulk of Talk360’s South African market at the time of the campaign.
Built-in Salesforce
Many of our drivers are foreign nationals.
Friendly go-getters who are eager and experienced in getting big brand names out in the public eye and making sales on the brand’s behalf.
Not only are our drivers Talk360’s ideal customers, but their ideal Agents as well.
Which makes them the perfect delivery vehicle for Talk360’s Agent acquisition campaign.
Our drivers are tapped into their extended communities of foreign nationals like no other. They’re a fleet of brand ambassadors who could drive the message home by motivating friends, communities, and Uber Eats customers to get onto the Talk360 app.
Our drivers were very excited about this as well. Becoming a Talk360 Agent and bringing in other Agents through their unique flyers meant that they could earn up to R1700 extra every month – on top of the additional income they were already receiving from MotionAds.
No logistics or extra admin for the built-in Salesforce
Normally, finding and hiring a sales team like this is a very costly and labour intensive process.
But when you outsource the job to MotionAds, you get to skip the hassle and expense, to immediately reap the rewards.
What MotionAds delivered
The pilot 2 month campaign consisted of 20 bikes. 10 in Joburg CBD and 10 in Pretoria CBD.
Results were very promising from this pilot campaign.
Brand awareness and app downloads were increasing. So Talk360 decided to extend and expand the campaign for an additional 3 months.
“We believed in the concept and I was of the opinion that this could give us the additional push to target our new customers.” - Jonathan Katende
So, in phase 2 we expanded to 31 branded bikes - 11 Joburg CBD, 10 Pretoria CBD, and 10 in Cape Town’s Northern Suburbs.
Resulting in a tangible impact on 31 micro-enterprises and their families.
1. Branded Top Box
- In total we had 175 480 branded km.
- See our GPS and impact app for areas and distances travelled per month
- The boxes had an eye-catching design with tangible pricing showing the excellent rates. And the national flags in the design were a great way to get the target market’s attention.
2. Flyers to the kitchen table
- In total, we delivered 37 862 branded flyers over 5 months.
- Our flyers, delivered with each meal, showed customers the benefits of becoming Talk360 Agents.
- Flyers drive direct leads for the Talk360 Agent campaign.
- The flyers also had personalised QR codes unique to each of our drivers so we could track just how many new Talk360 Agents each driver was responsible for signing up.
3. Distributed Sales Force focused on social upliftment
- 31 Uber Eats delivery drivers became the newest addition to the Talk360 Agent pool.
- They spread the word about how great the app is. They converted friends, family, their foreign nationals community and other drivers into Talk360 users.
- This led to tangible social upliftment for these drivers and their families. Working on this campaign enabled them to earn additional income from MotionAds and Talk360 for 6 months.
Here is what Neville M, one of our drivers who been with us since April 2021 had to say about the campaign:
When they told me there are incentives, I took it with both hands knowing that I have to put my name on the globe… The opportunity that I saw was both MotionAds and Talk360 growing and therefore offering us more incentives at the end of the day.
I enjoy Talk360 incentives as they added for my family outings and airtime.
To sign them up it wasn’t hard because I explained to them it was R10 for more than 30 minutes compared to the international rates for local networks. I even showed them on my phone how much a minute cost versus Talk360. So a lot of them signed up. A guy wanted to buy a R100 voucher to call internationally. I asked him how many minutes he would get and from there I showed him with the same R100 how many minutes he would get using Talk360. He was so pleased even with R10. Thereafter he referred another 2 people to join Talk360.
The Results
Increased brand awareness
“We got the results we were hoping for, especially at a brand awareness level. A few people that I know sent me pictures of the bikes on the road which was gratifying to see.” - Jonathan Katende
MotionAds facilitated over 30 million brand impressions in 6 months.*
* Based on MotionAd’s 2019 study: 1 bike gets an average of 11 207 “opportunities to view” each day.
And though Talk360 have not run an official brand pulse survey, they believe that the outdoor campaign was a vital advertising avenue that helped them to gain memorable exposure and increased brand awareness within their target demographic.
This converted into further uptake of the Talk360 app within South Africa since the start of their MotionAds campaign. Bringing in over 800% more customers over the past year.
Our Outdoor and Agent referral campaign contributed to astonishing key business metrics that lead to Talk360 securing a second round of venture capital funding.
According to this article in itweb.co.za, Talk360 secured an additional $3 million (R53 million) in seed round funding in October 2022.This takes its total seed round to $7 million (R124 million) after its first closing in May 2022.
So during the same year that Talk360’s ran their campaign with MotionAds, they saw a 167% growth in customers and 130% revenue growth, as well as nearly doubling the number of calling minutes to and from South Africa.
Talk360 achieved this on the back of what it calls a “significantly improved” distribution network. The company has seen a 33% growth in Agents, bringing in over 800% more customers over the past year.
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Contact us to discover how we can help drive your brand to new heights.
