From smoke signals to Twitter to the whiteboard

Posted by Jaan on March 16th, 2010 | Add your comment

From smoke signals to Morse code, to telegrams, postcards to email to SMS to Twitter. That is more or less the evolution of short form communication. That’s why the new campaign by Tribal DDB for Swedish telco Telia feels very natural. Not as part of that evolution, but as a campaign that has found its time and parallel communicative and pop cultural place.

With Telia i dina händer (”Telia in your hands”) Telia uses a live video feed of a whiteboard to answer customer questions. The campaign reminded me of a post I wrote in October, about extending the UPS whiteboard concept to the real world.

“What if UPS extended the core element of the whiteboard campaign [...] to the way the company interacted with their customers?”

I like it that Telia has taken the concept in that general direction. Instead of just using it in commercials, like UPS does, they use it to do something useful that requires relatively minimal resources, is quick and helps build the Telia brand (it is very addictive to watch).

The quick, simple and immediate should never be under estimated when it comes to comms. Well done Tribal DDB and Telia.

Unfortunately the hands were resting when I grabbed this, but you get the general idea.