Turkcell is the leading mobile operator in Turkey with more than 35M customers serving them through different communications platforms designated for specific profiles, 1400 stores, mobile apps and digital channels.
Turkcell a company with the slogan ‘Connect to Life with Turkcell’ which means connecting people to people, things to people, life to people. And as the world evolves and as all the brands starting to evolve we knew that brands needed to be more than their just products and services.
In our many various CSR platforms including education and women empowerment, helping our fury friends have been in our radar for a while now. Previously in 2018 we placed bowls and kennels to our 1400 physical shop doors to become a home to them and in a way adopting them. And taking it further for our friends we wanted to engage our customers and them a part of the good.
With a happy coincidence World Animal Day was coincided with the World Smile Day. As Turkcell we wanted to put a smile on our lovely fury friends with our own customers’ smiles. Thus the ‘Spread the Smile’ campaign created.
With its 35M-customer base, Turkcell the leading mobile operator in Turkey had the monthly usage rate of 21M in its mobile app, DO. In DO besides our customers’ daily need for their tariffs, we also have some retention tools and games. As brands need to grow bigger then themselves in the technology age we knew that we could turn this engagement other than retention to do some good. DO mobile app was the perfect channel for “Spread the Smile” campaign.
There are 8M stray animals in Turkey, whom are cared in the shelters and always in need for some support so we have developed a new AI technology that can be used to recognize emotions in our mobile app DO. Our users logged in to Turkcell’s DO app, a one-stop app to meet all communication and technology needs, to participate in “Spread the Smile” Next, they took selfies with a smile.
The AI technology that we developed calculated the level of each smile and we donated food to Yedikule Animal Shelter in proportion to the level of each user’s smile. A selfie with a bigger smile meant more happiness for our lovely friends.
“Spread the Smile” campaign is the first time that an AI technology was used for social responsibility project in Turkey.
Our campaign reached 19.9 million people on TV and digital media.
Moreover, it gained 39M impressions and 360.000 interactions in total and 310.000 people participated.
But most importantly,we gave our lovely friends food and unconditional love : )
