After 15 years of delivering mission critical, end-to-end converged communication solutions to the Southern African Internet and communications market, IS is now building on all that the company has achieved in order to realise its vision of a converged future, both socially and commercially, starting with the launch of a high-involvement marketing and communications campaign.

 

“Through this new campaign we wanted to celebrate the culture of the people at IS and at the same time deliver on our vision of a converged future,” says Angus MacRobert, CEO at IS. “We are very optimistic about what lies ahead for the telecommunications industry and feel that the best is yet to come for IS. As such, we were looking for an inspiring change to our business that will make a real difference, both internally to our staff and externally to the industry.”

 

At the core of its business IS aims to simplify technology for people everyday, by weaving technology into the life of business and society everywhere. “However, regardless of the technology we have at our disposal it is the people at IS that makes it great,” continues MacRobert. “It is their mindset that makes IS what it is and brings the technology to life, so the campaign needed to have a very personal feel to it.”

 

With this as the brief, full service creative agency, Hello World created a central campaign idea that encapsulates the company vision, while remaining true to IS’ people centric approach to business. “Despite the technical brilliance behind their products and services, everything is created with people in mind, and as a result of this simplification, solutions may often appear unbelievable and extraordinary,” says Theo Ferreira, Chief Executive Creative Director at Hello World Agency. “IS is more than just a company with a big imagination, it thinks big. They imagine solutions that at first glance may seem improbable, if not impossible, and then they make the impossible happen. They do not stop at ‘what if?’, they follow through with their big ideas. So, with this insight into the core of the IS company and culture the campaign’s central big idea evolved into the concept of When ‘what if’ becomes ‘when’.

 

“This positioning portrays our attitude of constantly looking to innovate and find new solutions, which is essential as we move into the most exciting time in the industry’s history,” says MacRobert. “The campaign reinforces the positive mindset that has served IS well in the past, and provides the impetus to take the company into the future with renewed vigour and drive,’ he concludes.

 

The new IS when ‘what if’ becomes ‘when’ brand campaign includes print and outdoor advertising, a redesigned corporate identity (CI), digital and social media elements, PR and event management. The new CI includes the conceptualisation, design and production of new product logos, promotional material, marketing collateral, stationary, documents and internal templates. The above-the-line print and outdoor elements capture the essence of the IS brand, with a surreal depiction of technology set against the backdrop of peoples’ everyday lives, encapsulated through everyday headlines. The print campaign will run in daily and weekly business press, as well as monthly trade, business and lifestyle magazines over the remainder of the year. The billboard campaign has launched around the IS head offices in Johannesburg, and the campaign theme and creative execution will also be carried through to IS’ annual industry event, Internetix, taking place in July.

 

TAMMY DU PREEZ Communications Manager   Tel: 087 365 7768   Tel: +27 (11) 575 7768   Fax: +27 (11) 576 7768​