case study

Ambergreen fast tracks world first for TalkTalk

TalkTalk, the telecommunications company from The Carphone Warehouse, launched free broadband forever to the UK market in April 2006.

An industry first, TalkTalk threw down the gauntlet to the telecoms industry, sparking a media frenzy and massive consumer interest.

"For too long the British public has been charged costly fees for high-speed internet access, or has had to use slow internet connections. We are bringing this to an end," said TalkTalk’s Chief Executive, Charles Dunstone.

"High speed internet will now become a standard service in the home - just like radio or television. The change this represents for society is huge. This is the tipping point."

Challenge:
TalkTalk was not only entering a new market and launching a pioneering new service never seen before, but the move would completely revolutionise the broadband sector. This was uncharted territory for TalkTalk as, fundamentally, it was changing the rules of a market place forever.

ambergreen, recently commissioned to provide search consultancy and expertise across both The Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk sites was asked to develop the search marketing strategy that would fast track not only TalkTalk"s new website but the concept of ‘free broadband’ to the top of the search engines. Critically, Ambergreen would have to dovetail the strategy with TalkTalk’s offline marketing and public relations campaigns to create visibility in the search engines for the demand created through other media.

Solution:
Ambergreen recognised immediately that the strategy would only succeed if search was combined seamlessly as part of TalkTalk’s overriding media push.

Ambergreen knew that the news would be picked up widely by the media and on forums across the web. The company’s well known expertise in optimisation, was vital in developing a sophisticated strategy that supported other marketing strategies and campaigns. Search visibility for brand, broadband and offer terms was dramatically increased, seeing TalkTalk ranked number one on Google for the term ‘free broadband’.

TalkTalk’s creation of ‘Charles Dunstone’s Blog’ has helped the company build a one to one relationship with its customers and also manage its brand reputation and any negative press coverage.

Result:
There are now over eight million domestic broadband connections in the UK and every month a further 250,000 users sign up for broadband, making it one of the fastest growing media services. TalkTalk today has over 2.4 million customers and the third largest share of the UK telecoms market. Within the first two days of launch, Ambergreen positioned TalkTalk.co.uk in the top ten results on Google, Yahoo! and MSN for both brand related terms and those such as "free broadband". In less than a week, Ambergreen helped TalkTalk.co.uk to leverage the full power of the internet and transform the broadband market forever.