For much of the last decade, the media world was fixated on cord cutting, the rise of streamers, media unbundling and disintermediation (haven’t heard that word in a while).
But a new campaign from Telus suggests that the future may not only be friendly, it may also be bundled again. The telco has introduced a new Streaming+ package for its mobility subscribers: $25 a month gets you Netflix Premium, Apple TV+ and Discovery+, which results in a savings of about $7 for anyone subscribing to all three individually.
This may be the first such re-bundling from a major player in Canada, but the idea that the future of TV could look a lot like the past has been on the rise for a while. Vox suggested that “the future of streaming is the cable bundle” back in 2019, for example. And just last month, Quartz asked, “Is it time for television to get rebundled?” while Nielsen’s “State of Play” report seemed to answer that question: “Bundling is the streaming future consumers want,” it concluded.
According to its research, nearly half of respondents (46%) say it is hard to find the content they want because there are too many streaming services available, and 64% say they want a bundled service where they can choose as many or as few services as they want.
“Over the last two years, Canadians coast-to-coast have been streaming more than ever and are increasingly looking to simplify their streaming subscriptions while enjoying premium entertainment for less,” said Telus Mobility Solutions president Jim Senko in a release announcing the new offering last week. “We’ve been listening to our customers and we’ve heard that they’re looking for convenience, cost savings and simplicity. That’s why we’re excited to deliver Stream+.”
It’s perhaps fitting, then, that if new TV is starting to look like the old TV—though with better content—that Telus is still using its cute and cuddly animals to advertise the service. In this case, the campaign by The&Partnership features bunnies hopping around in front of a plain white backdrop, soundtracked by “Soul Bossa Nova” (aka: the Austin Powers theme song), with supers introducing the new offering.
Telus’s iconic critter platform has “almost universal brand attribution,” said Jack Shute, partner and general manager on the Telus account at The&Partnership.
“Time and again we see levels of customer enjoyment and recall that far outstrip industry norms,” he said. “Very few brands can claim to have such an effective set of brand assets to call upon.”
Telus is also connecting the new Stream+ bundle to its unlimited data offering with a campaign theme of “Unlimited Everything.”
“The bunnies represent the breadth of our content,” said Lise Doucet, director, marketing communications for Telus. “As our content grows, so do the number of bunnies we use to represent it.”
Telus can also use the bunnies in different playful ways, she said. “For instance, we could promote the 90 Day: The Single Life from Discovery+ with the customized tagline ‘Unlimited data. Unlimited Romance. Introducing Stream+’ and snuggling bunnies.”
