Client: Tele2 Kazakhstan
Agency: McCann
Period: Spring 2023
BACKGROUND For many years, Tele2, the second-largest telecom operator in Kazakhstan, successfully grew as a discounter, building a large subscriber base around the promise of the lowest prices on the market. Over time, this strategy reached its growth limit. The next source of business growth lay in a more affluent and demanding audience that prioritised connection quality, service value, and product richness — an audience that associated low price with lower quality.
At the same time, Tele2 needed to preserve its strong position among price-sensitive customers who had chosen the brand precisely for its affordability. The challenge was compounded by intense competition and a stagnating telecom category with near-zero growth.
OBJECTIVEThe objective was to unlock new growth by shifting Tele2 from a pure discounter to a value-for-money brand — one that delivers the best balance of price and quality.
This meant achieving two goals simultaneously:
- Attracting a more demanding, higher-value audience by improving perceptions of network quality, product value, and innovation.
- Retaining the existing price-sensitive customer base by maintaining leadership in low-price perception.
Ultimately, the business goal was to accelerate revenue growth and increase ARPU without sacrificing scale.
SOLUTIONWe introduced a new long-term brand platform, “Beneficially Different”, placing customer value at the core of everything Tele2 did — from products and pricing to communication and innovation.
The platform unified two seemingly opposite territories: the lowest prices and strong value for money. We built a distinctive creative framework around the Tele2 “Agents of Benefit” — brand characters fighting unfair market practices and helping customers avoid unnecessary spending. The new brand heroes, clear positioning, and a refreshed, carefully developed visual style played a key role in building brand awareness and trust, attracting a more modern audience, and reinforcing the perception of Tele2 as an innovative and technologically advanced brand.
This philosophy was consistently implemented across the business:
- Launch of genuinely beneficial products and tariff innovations designed to give customers more for the same money.
- Introduction of a large-scale, category-first loyalty program.
- Gradual and well-explained rollout of 5G, positioning it as a tangible quality upgrade rather than a premium add-on.
- A strong, coherent communication system across TV, digital, OOH, retail, and owned channels.
