Vodafone NZ rebrand: Marketing veteran puts a price tag on creating 'One' love

One.NZ CEO Jason Paris at the launch of the new name moving from Vodafone to One.NZ starting next year. 28 September 2022 New Zealand Herald photograph by Dean Purcell.

Marketing experts are impressed by the look and feel of Vodafone NZ's new One New Zealand brand - but say there are some hard yards ahead to establish its new identity, in part because of the way TVNZ already has dibs on "One" (or "1" as the state-owned broadcaster now styles it).

Vodafone NZ chief executive Jason Paris said his company will make "substantial savings" by no longer having to pay brand fees to its former parent from early next year, when it will officially change its name.

Those millions will go into network and product upgrades, Paris said.

But the flipside, says Andy Lark - a Kiwi executive who has held senior marketing roles with firms including Dell in the US, Xero in NZ and CBA in Australia - is the cost of establishing an identity for "One NZ" and the new green roundel symbol that goes with it (which prompted Kiwibank CEO Steve Jurkovich to post, "Welcome aboard - green is the new black" - see below).

"The design looks like it will work well to create brand availability - a marketer's phrase for being memorable," Lark told the Herald.

"My concern is that in NZ TV One occupies the one place in our minds and that will be hard to overcome.

"Vodafone is such a powerful global brand - so they lose that as well; the 'truck-and-trailer' effect off all those times we are exposed to Vodafone."

Recreating the same "mental availability" for the new One NZ brand will cost "tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions", Lark said.

"A project like this would be a minimum of $250,000 $500,000 for the base design and brand identity work. And much more to do the research, so, I'd peg it between $500,000 and $1 million," Lark said, in terms of costs incurred so far.

Revamping existing stores and signage would cost $5m to $10m, the veteran marketing exec said - and then there would be the brand campaigns on top of that which would cost multiples more.

Paris would not comment on financials, but said he was not worried about TVNZ's decades-long hold on "one".

"On social media, some people have been comparing One NZ to the TVNZ 1 brand which, if you're over 30, you'll remember stands for New Zealand, trust and credibility. And if you're under 30, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about," Paris quipped.

Earlier, Auckland University branding expert Bodo Lang raised the concern there could be brand confusion - particularly given One NZ even has a similar type style to the One News logo used by TVNZ until 2016.

TVNZ - which is shortly about to go through a shakeup of its own via its controversial merger with RNZ - said it was not fussed, however.

"Vodafone operates in a different marketplace, we don't see this as a conflict," a spokeswoman said. (Or at least, soon it will. Vodafone is in the process of winding down its Vodafone TV partnership with Sky.)

Not heard of far-right groups

The One NZ branding also drew a range of negative comments on social media after the Herald's initial story.

Some said it sounded like a right-wing nationalist party (Pauline Hanson's One Nation was a meme deployed by a number of people, and a local foundation by others), others that it would be difficult to Google - although it helps that Paris's company secured the one.nz internet address (registered by a former staffer, who now works for 3Plus Consulting, one of the agencies involved in the rebrand.)

More broadly, the NZ Companies Office lists more than 1300 local firms that include "One" in their name including, in the tech market, OneNet.

Paris - who weathered the initially hostile reaction to the Spark rebranding while second-in-command at Telecom - told the Herald that 90 per cent of feedback had been positive.

"I've heard some of the negative commentary. You can't please everyone. There are always going to be views," Paris said.

I'm kinda with you here Chris, Vodafone may have done NZ a favour by neutralising that brand...

who's gonna be better at SEO –– a telco or some mad racists?

— Dan Brunskill (@dan_brunskill) September 28, 2022

"I'm not familiar with some of the political parties that people have been referencing. It's maybe a bit before my time.

"But I'm really confident that One New Zealand is reflective of where we're heading to as an organisation. One in terms of simplicity and one team working together for our customers."

An artist's impression of a Vodafone NZ store rebranded with One NZ's green livery. The mockup features Vodafone NZ’s “teardrop" symbol, but the final design will replace it with One NZ’s green roundel. Image / Supplied

Lang said "One NZ" was part of a trend toward corporates adopting ambiguous names, but he saw One potentially being a metaphor for "bring[ing] families and communities together, and at the end of the day that's what communication is all about."

Paris name-checked another rebranding exercise: When Infratil (today, half owner of Vodafone NZ) and the NZ Super Fund bought Shell and Chevron's New Zealand assets in 2011, they renamed the business "Z".

Lang said that was a good model.

Both petrol and telecommunications were "grudge purchases", Lang said, or products people bought out of necessity rather than necessarily any love for a brand.

"The Z rebranding went well. It made the brand more local, which is a positive."

Beyond his qualms about One News confusion, he saw the potential for One NZ to do the same.

"I think this is a brand New Zealanders can take more ownership of," Lang said.

"The colours and the logo design are lovely."

New name, new look

Vodafone NZ revealed on Wednesday morning that it's changing its name to One New Zealand, or One NZ for short, from early next week.

The telco is also ditching the red and white used by Vodafone globally in favour of an emerald or greenstone green.

Misterwolf, The Tuesday Club and Two Views were the "main agencies" involved in the rebranding.

The telco also drafted in interior designers Warren & Mahoney - last seen fitting out 2degrees and Chorus' respective new offices - for a retail store refresh.

New owners then, after a spell, a new name

The UK-based, multinational Vodafone sold its local business to NZX-listed Infratil and Canada's Brookfield three years ago. Each holds close to a half-share.

"There wasn't a timeframe on when the rebrand needed to happen. Licensing the name could continue, if desired," a Vodafone spokeswoman told the Herald. "We've decided that now is the right time to do it, as part of our ongoing transformation."

Vodafone CEO Jason Paris with the new "One NZ" branding, which will come into effect early next year. Photo / Dean Purcell

Lang said the biggest factor in whether the rebranding was a success would be if Vodafone made substantial changes beyond a new name and colour. "People will buy into it if they see that this is truly a New Zealand company that invests in our various diverse communities and supports certain causes openly and forcefully."

On this front, he saw the telco's emphasis on the $50m it has spent so far on philanthropy and a new $1.2m-per-year youth fund as encouraging signs.

Te reo advocacy, if not in the name

Paris has been a te reo advocate with Vodafone NZ pushing back against social media flak after it changed its network name on people's phones to VF Aotearoa.

Paris told the Herald his company did not consider One Aotearoa as its main brand, but added, "We are committed to supporting Te Ao Māori and normalising the use of te reo through Whārikihia, our Māori strategy, and through honouring the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We also support numerous digital equity and youth programmes."

Lang said, "Aotearoa is really resonating with some people, but it can be divisive for others. Some people are comfortable with it, but some are not - and it's a mass-market product."

The practical necessities of global roaming would also have played a role in the decision, Lang said, given, inbound tourists were more familiar with New Zealand - though he saw scope for change around five years down the track.

Jason Paris at the launch of the new brand for Vodafone. Photo / Dean Purcell

Paris said new initiatives will include One Good Kiwi, "a unique digital charity platform through which One New Zealand will donate $1.2m a year to worthy causes that are making positive change for rangatahi."

The Vodafone NZ boss added: "Our commitment to Aotearoa has always been intergenerational. We recently celebrated the 20-year anniversary of Te Rourou, Vodafone Aotearoa Foundation (soon to be Te Rourou, One New Zealand Foundation), which has now invested close to $50m in securing a better future for rangatahi (young people), and we believe represents the biggest corporate philanthropy in New Zealand's history, and this commitment will continue long into the future."

Big changes already

The company has been overhauling the way it sells and serves, bringing most of its call centres back home to New Zealand, forming local teams of experts and bringing all its retail stores under full ownership, Paris said.

In other recent major changes ,Vodafone has pulled the plug on its Vodafone TV service, used by around 100,000 customers and sold its 1484-site cell tower network to London-based InfraRed Capital Partners, Toronto's Northleaf Capital Partners and one of its corporate parents, Infratil, in a deal worth a total $1.7 billion.

Vodafone NZ's pending rebrand is the second major recasting of the local telco market after the number three and four players 2degrees and Orcon Group - which includes Slingshot and various other brands - merged and adopted "2degrees" as their moniker, with other brands in their combined operation set to be retired over time.