MONTREAL – Freedom Mobile’s newest ad spots — in which Freedom spokesperson Canadian actor Will Arnett is humorously replaced by a lower-paid, not-exactly-lookalike actor — is the first campaign Quebecor’s collaborative marketing agency Qolab has developed for the wireless provider, Qolab announced last week.
Freedom Mobile was acquired by Quebecor’s Videotron in April and the new ad campaign, running under the banner “Bigger, Better, Faster Than Ever,” has been appearing on TV, web, social media, print and out-of-home platforms since August.
Capitalizing on Arnett’s popularity, “Qolab offers up an entertaining campaign in which the popular actor is replaced with a ‘cheaper’ doppelganger — and then by the doppelganger’s doppelganger — as a way to save in order to continue offering customers the best service,” a Qolab press release explains.
“The idea behind the campaign starts from the fact that Freedom Mobile offers so much more without increasing its prices; it goes without saying that to do this, they have to cut somewhere,” Jocelyn Goyer, senior manager and creative director at Qolab, said in the release.
“In the ad, Will Arnett, spokesperson for the brand, discovers how the company pulls this off when he meets his budget-friendly version. It’s a bold approach that perfectly matches the actor’s self-deprecating style,” Goyer said.
Two video ads from the campaign developed by Qolab can be viewed here and here.
The videos were created using MELS Studios and Postproduction’s 10,000-square-foot virtual production set in Montreal. MELS is a film and TV production services division of Quebecor Media’s TVA Group.
The MELS virtual production set’s “state-of-the-art installations include a 20-foot-high, 65-foot-diameter LED screen wall with a dynamic, motorized ceiling and movable side panels — high-end infrastructures that allow for the creation of virtual environments projected in real time,” the press release says.
“We were blown away by Qolab’s expertise and professionalism, as well as by the multiple possibilities offered by the MELS virtual production stage,” said Eden Kline, director of brand and advertising at Freedom Mobile. “It was a highly rewarding turnkey customer experience from beginning to end. We are also very pleased with the performance of this campaign so far.”
Photo from Freedom Mobile’s newest ad campaign featuring Will Arnett (centre) provided by Qolab.
