Motivational messages to mobile phones

 

ADT, the UK’s leading provider of electronic fire and security solutions, launched their biggest ever consumer advertising campaign in April 2007. The advert was produced by one of the UK’s biggest advertising agency AMV BBDO.

 

ADT regard internal communications as a vital part of the integrated campaign and wanted to ensure that all staff were fully briefed on the ad campaign prior to it going on air. They particularly wanted to ensure they spoke to their remote staff such as engineers and sales advisors. These staff often work away from their offices and traditional communication such as e-mail and intranet are not always suitable.  

ADT appointed Grasswhispers, the specialists in motivational voice broadcasting to staff mobile phones, to help ensure all employees were kept informed about the new ads.

 

Grasswhispers’ ability to reach all staff in a large organisation with high quality, motivating and informative recorded voice messages sent simultaneously to thousands of mobile phones at the touch of a button was the ideal solution.

 

Tony Harris, Managing Director of ADT UK and Ireland, would, in effect, telephone every member of staff at the same time and deliver personal messages about the campaign background; the advertising messages and special screenings of the ads for staff at their branches.

 

The Grasswhispers team advised on the content and tone of the scripts and Tony Harris’s messages were recorded at ADT’s head office using our portable studio. The broadcasts were branded “ADT FM” and a suitable jingle was added.

 

The campaign started with an SMS alert to all staff followed by a series of three pre-recorded “ADT FM” voice broadcasts of 30-40 seconds in length, sent over 14 days in the build up to the new TV ad campaign.

 

The calls were made from an 0871 number, which was also set up as an inbound call-back, so anyone missing a message or wanting to hear it again could do so by simply returning the call.

 

The phone messages went out to over 4000 ADT company mobile phones at three pre-arranged times using Grasswhispers’ simultaneous voice broadcasting facility. This is capable of making up to 10,000 phone calls in an hour. Calls could be received as “live calls” or if not taken they could be listened to later like normal voicemails.

 

There were just under 1,000 calls back to the inbound number where staff could hear the MD’s latest message again.

ADT head office staff reported that the voice messages were well received. Staff recognised the ADT FM jingle and the number when they got the calls to their phones. The MD was pleased with his colleagues’ reaction to this fresh approach to internal communications. ADT said it would conduct further voice broadcasts to keep staff informed on various aspects of the business.

 

Researchers conducted a telephone survey among ADT staff a few days after the first three voice broadcasts had gone out.

 

A huge majority of staff (90%) were aware of receiving the voice messages and almost all knew they came from Tony Harris (95%).

 

Unprompted, 35% remembered the name “ADT FM” — a very good score as this was a completely new endeavour and each employee had only three brief exposures to this name.

The overwhelming response of ADT staff to receiving the Grasswhispers messages was positive, with two thirds (67%) of them saying that they were welcome or useful.

 

As with all staff communications, there were a handful of people who did not want any more messages, but 80% of those who expressed a preference said that they would like to receive more voice broadcasts.

 

“ADT FM was very good. It was a bit funky…you remember it. New things can be forgotten about after a few weeks so they should keep on with it.”

 

“The calls were welcomed, that’s for sure. They let us know what was happening. I got the invite to the thing at the branch.”

 

“It’s a good way to be kept informed…you get a call and you answer it.”