The Christmas Miracle Striking Balance in Life (And How Mobile Tech can Make it Happen)

Changing a brand name is a gigantic task. However, it also offers a clean slate that creates the space to start again from scratch. PPF Telecom Group saw that opportunity when it bought the Central and Southern European business units from the Norwegian owner.

According to the agreement between Telenor ASA and PPF, rather than keeping the old name, the PPF Telecom Group introduced an entirely new brand in Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria.

“The clean slate is the highest category of rebranding as you need to rebuild the brand’s identity and story from the ground up,” Gergely  Dolezsai, director of brand and marketing communication at Yettel Hungary, says.

As Dolezsai explains, a new brand can provide a fresh framework, but what matters to customers is with what that is filled. However, before that process can begin, recognition must reach a certain level. The latter criterion was ticked in Yettel’s case way ahead of schedule.

“Surveys showed that by May, people were able to name Yettel spontaneously; we had envisaged a one-year period for that to be accomplished,” Dolezsai notes.

The core theme of the rethought image is balance. Everybody has a lot of different areas in life where they need to deliver, and that pressure can be overwhelming.

“If used well, tech can help tackle the issue,” Dolezsai notes. A robust 5G connection, together with an unlimited data plan, can work magic by enabling individuals swamped with work and family-related obligations to strike a balance between their activities through improved productivity in the office and at home. Supported by a growing 5G network, Yettel’s mobile and mobile-based Home and Office solutions for consumers and businesses have been designed to make just that happen.

Christmas Challenge

On top of the myriad everyday commitments, and with the purchasing power of salaries plunging, Christmas present buying can pose another challenge that makes reaching that balance even more difficult.

Perhaps the best idea is if we just give ourselves. That is precisely what Yettel’s current “Give Yourself” ad campaign revolves around, encouraging people to let go of excessive expectations and thus aim for balance. If achieved, it could even qualify as a Christmas miracle.

The brand’s logo has a life of its own that carves out space for creativity. Given its typographic nature with a period at the end of the name, marketers have plenty of playful options to strengthen the image of freshness. The logo’s characteristics are also such that the Yettel sign works well on-screen and offline.

Any rebranding begs the question of how it might impact the Hungarian telco market. Yettel says it is confident about the future, not least because of the special emphasis on customer-oriented services that are bound to pay off in the long run.

“We focus on ourselves and our clients so that we can work on our ambition to provide the best possible service and innovation that promises a true customer experience that can help to strike a balance in lives,” Dolezsai concludes.

This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of December 16, 2022.