The Pay As You Go (PAYG) market is the new battleground for the operators, and competition is hotting up to get and keep customers. The core demographic is 16 to 24 year olds who probably had PAYG as a parental control mechanism but who themselves have very limited income. The process of 'Topping up' is very functional and it is hard to rustle up enthusiasm for it. This audience often use their limited funds to fund other passions (e.g. gaming, shopping or music). A reason was needed to get these users to make the effort to keep topped up, and spend their money with T-Mobil

The objective of this campaign was to push for a direct response within current T-Mobile customers and encourage weekly top-ups.

T-Mobile devised a new pre-pay proposition, Top Up Friday (TUF). This was a means of retaining existing T-Mobile customers and recruiting customers on competitor networks. If customers topped up to a value of £10 or more on a Friday they would get free texts for the following weekend. It was through teaming up with magazines (Heat, More FHM and Zoo) that the strategy of 'Welcoming the Weekend was brought to life by creating the Friday Club. Here consumers were delivered content, prizes, or top tips on things to do next weekend, which they could access all week long.

From the day the activity began, week-in-week-out, thousands of people 'topped up' on a Friday. Not only that, but the timely message and highly targeted media selection ensured that consideration reached an all time high rising to 25% from 12% at the beginning of the campaign. Activity drove 417,202 opt-ins. 1,400 people joined the Friday club and the online game was played 310,000 times.

Magazines gave T-Mobile an opportunity to really connect with their audience and bring the TUF proposition to life. Creating bespoke content that really resonated with this audience meant that the consumer was engaged in a way that no other channel would have allowed.