Driving retail traffic while
giving the unheard a voice.
Boost Mobile
“Boost Your Voice”
Case Study
Nobody expected big things from Boost Mobile.
The account was mostly low-budget social media, with virtually no chance of selling and producing a glitzy broadcast campaign. Perfect for us. We love big campaigns, but we are especially good at finding opportunities where no one thinks they exist.
Race to the bottom.
There’s no such thing as brand loyalty in prepaid wireless. With no contracts, customers often switch between carriers on price alone. Boost Mobile was getting lost by doing the same thing as its competitors, messaging almost exclusively on promotional incentives.
Boost was founded on a noble mission, but they’d drifted from it over the years.
When we were tasked to run Boost’s social media, we started as we often do, by looking to their mission.
Boost was founded to be a wireless ally for low-income and working-class minorities in urban areas across the U.S. who couldn’t afford a contract phone plan. Offering affordable service so they could be heard.
Planning Boost’s social media calendar for the year ahead, it was clear the 2016 election would be a defining cultural moment. We started thinking about the election in relation to Boost’s audience and their founding mission.
They didn’t vote because voting itself was the obstacle.
Boost’s target demographic wasn’t voting because they face significantly more obstacles to vote, from hours-long lines to fewer polling stations. With the repeal of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court, and 868 polling station closures in low-income and minority neighborhoods, things were just getting worse.
We had an audacious idea.
We realized Boost Mobile stores are located in the same neighborhoods where voting access is most problematic. And we asked, “what if we could turn Boost Mobile stores into polling places?” Brian’s polling place was at a car dealership years earlier, so we knew it was theoretically possible to vote at a commercial business.
This seed of inspiration led us to launching an unprecedented initiative for equal voting access during the 2016 election.
It truly was a massive undertaking.
Working closely with our social clients, we sold the idea to Boost store owners, all of which are individually franchised. And with a rotating team of callers, relentlessly contacted 817 county election boards.
Good for business
We helped reconnect Boost with their original mission, and in helping them stand up for their customers, we earned them something they couldn’t buy among their target demographic: respect and loyalty.
766 million earned impressions. 96% increase in brand reputation score. 207% increase in consideration. 700% increase in purchase intent. 2,200% increase in the brand’s recommend score. And Boost stores that served as polling places saw an average 29% YOY increase in sales.
Good for the world
