The 'Cruel Ting' campaign borrows from a successful Chinese-language talent show of the same name on TVB Jade in which contestants stand to win HK$100 (US$13) for every minute they remain on stage before a bell rings and cuts short their performance.
In the TV-led campaign, Cruel Ting's programme hosts, singer Hacken Lee and actor Joey Ting, address the issues of inferior services offered by other price-focused operators. The duo also spotlight PCCW's superior voice quality, award-winning service centre and value-added services, providing stock tips as well as weather forecasts, in three TV spots. "We wanted to steer the focus away from pricing with a strategy to spell out that PCCW is 'more than just pricing'," said JWT Hong Kong CEO Desmond So.
When respondents were asked if they had seen an ad with Hacken Lee and Joey Leung, 74 per cent of 120 respondents said they had in the weeks after the campaign launched on July 11. Eighty-four per cent of respondents also recalled that the ad was for PCCW, while 62 per cent of those who claimed to have seen the ad said they knew the campaign was for PCCW. TNS tracked the results, polling 120 respondents, aged 15 to 60 who were randomly selected for telephone interviews.
Tactical campaigns launched last year -- 'Kubi' and '$3 million' -- achieved scores of 50, 85 and 42 per cent respectively. PCCW has faced significant threats to its market share from emerging voice over internet challengers. As the city's dominant fixed-line player, PCCW is not permitted to compete on pricing. Maxus handled media, which also included radio support.