Skype went for the funny bone with its "Skype for String" April Fool's Day prank. But it's not aiming for chuckles with its current marketing push: a multi-channel $12 million campaign in the U.S. and the U.K. with the tagline "It's time for Skype."

Created by Pereira & O'Dell in San Francisco, "It's time for Skype" takes on competitive social media platforms with lines like the Facebook-dissing "Upgrade from a wall post to a first class conversation" and (in a swipe at Twitter) "140 characters doesn't equal staying in touch."

"It's rare that a campaign gives you the opportunity to address very relevant, timely cultural issues. Skype isn't solving the world's problems, but it has a point of view. This is more than just a marketing message with provocative headlines — our message is to help people truly connect in a genuine way," said Justin Cox, Pereira & O'Dell's senior strategic planner-mobile.

With an outdoor push including posters and wraps in the London Bank Subway, on the London Torch, electronic billboards on the Canary Wharf, digital posters on bus shelters and in the Eurostar departure terminal in London Heathrow Terminal, the tagline defines a campaign focused on social connections for family relationships and business travelers and posits that Skype puts humanity back in communication.Continue reading...

Telstra celebrated the launch of 4G LTE services in Australia (the country's first taste of 4G, with Optus and Vodafone to follow next year) with a campaign called "The Fun Has Just Begun."

The communications giant brought some fun to Sydney's central business district. The public was treated to musical pop-up events including free performances by Friday phenom Rebecca Black in her first big endorsement deal.

Other free performances included a mariachi band and breakdancers around the Sydney CBD, while a flash mob removed their colored t-shirts in unison to reflect Telstra's bright new look. Watch more of the launch event marketing below.Continue reading...

Next time you are in Australia and a multicolored truck rolls by, don’t worry. It’s probably just the phone company.

Telstra, the nation’s largest telco and provider of voice, mobile, video (pay TV) and broadband Internet services (via its BigPond ISP), is in the midst of a major branding initiative with a new tagline that announces “Welcome to Life in Full Colour” and an advertising push whose song includes the line, "Get out your rainbow colors."

According to Telstra's press release, the company is wrapping itself in six colors (orange, green, turquoise, blue, purple and magenta) to symbolize "the diversity" of its customers and services.Continue reading...

Verizon may have retired its "Can you hear me now?" campaign earlier this year, but some 45,000 Verizon workers of its 83,000 employees nationwide have gone on strike in the hopes the company is still listening.

The stalemate continues between the union and the New York City-based company, according to Bloomberg.

The company’s first strike in 11 years “may delay service calls and disrupt installations for phone and Web service,” according to Bloomberg, but Verizon has 40,000 managers and contractors in its back pocket that it has trained to take the positions of strikers, who make up about a quarter of the company’s employees and represent Verizon’s decreasing land-line business.

“It is clear that some of the existing contract provisions, negotiated initially when Verizon was under far less competitive pressure, are not in line with the economic realities of business today,” said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, according to Bloomberg. “In fact, under these contracts, benefit costs have risen consistently even as the wireline business has shrunk.”Continue reading...