By mid 2010 Meerkats had helped iiNet establish itself as the foremost challenger brand to Australia’s big phone companies. The ever-popular iiNet Guy constantly challenged the status quo of the internet category on TV, billboards and online with new products and initiatives. And iiNet’s brand awareness and sales kept moving up.

But we saw a problem on the horizon. A series of consumer focus groups conducted by Meerkats up and down the eastern seaboard and in hometown Perth discovered that Australians are increasingly viewing internet service providers (ISPs) as utilities. Only a few years ago people grouped all internet-related companies together in a blurry collection of exciting technology brands. Today, however, only the Googles and Facebooks of the world seem to excite us. Boring old ISPs like Telstra, TPG and iiNet are merely providers.

“They just plug it in,” said one consumer, “How hard can it be?”.

Ouch.

The message was clear: to continue growing its market share iiNet had to be seen as a challenger brand with scale. Consumers needed to know that iiNet is big, safe and dependable as well as innovative, passionate and human.

So we created the No.2 campaign. We figured in every category of business there should be a committed No.2 brand keeping the No.1’s honest. That way, you can stay true to your challenger roots and at the same time imply scale and reliability. Thankfully, with its constant organic growth and a few timely buy-outs, by mid 2010 iiNet had indeed become the second biggest provider of DSL broadband after Telstra.

But why would the average disinterested TV viewer want to hear about a company’s business strategy? We were willing to bet they would be interested, if this news implied better service, better products and a more honest commonsense approach to customer care.

We also still had our secret weapon – the iiNet Guy – the perfect spokesperson for an underdog brand. With his self-deprecating charm, his ruthless honesty about ads and his uncanny ability to make TV viewers feel they’re just having a chat with a funny friend, Finn (that’s what we call him in the agency) made the No.2 message anything but businesslike.

Our creative idea was to insert a nervous Finn into footage of Barack Obama’s inauguration and have him be sworn in as the new No.2. As usual, we did it with tongues firmly in cheeks, as this line clearly indicates:

SFX: CHEERING CROWDS

FINN: “Thank you, thank you. I can honestly say you’re the nicest stock footage crowd I’ve ever spoken in front of…”

We ran 60sec spots on TV, plastered the message across trains and buses and trams in every city and ran full page ads in leading papers around the country – including the Financial Review. There were also a dedicated microsite celebrating the great No.2’s of history.

Campaign results in case studies are always “amazing!” so we’ll spare you the clichés. Suffice to say, this one set new benchmarks for the research company conducting the analysis and backed up every assumption we’d made with our client as to how Australian consumers would react to this brand idea.

Sweet.