Inside OPPO’s strategy with Amazon Ads to establish the smartphone brand in Italy
March 22, 2022
Isabella Lazzini and Milana Glisic presenting at a Mobile World Congress session.
When OPPO launched in Italy in September of 2018, the brand faced the daunting challenge of establishing itself in what was already a very saturated marketplace for smartphones.
“We had a green field ahead of us where every scenario was possible,” said Isabella Lazzini, Chief Marketing Officer of OPPO Italia, during a Mobile World Congress session. When Lazzini joined the company in January of last year, only one in two Italian consumers knew about the brand. “We had to start telling Italians what OPPO stood for. We had to tell our story.”
According to a 2021 Amazon Ads and Environics Research study, 92% of European consumers want to decide when and where they interact with a brand.1 Brands should consider demonstrating true value to consumers to engage with them authentically in ways that will resonate. And particularly, when launching in a new marketplace, brands take the time to build connections with their customers to develop awareness, consideration, and, ultimately, trust.
Isabella Lazzini and Milana Glisic speaking during a Mobile World Congress session.
At Mobile World Congress, which took place in Barcelona, Spain, from February 28 through March 3, Milana Glisic, Managing Director of Amazon Ads Italy, sat down with OPPO in a fireside chat to discuss how they reach and engage audiences and build this type of trust in new regions.
“Our DNA is founded on two main pillars: On one side we have technological excellence and on the other side you have attention to design, which is technology as a form of art,” Lazzini said. “We started orchestrating a complex marketing plan. And the end result was amazing because now 8 out of 10 Italians know the brand.”
How OPPO told its brand story in Italy
Amazon Ads and OPPO put together a strategy that focused on all the stages of the funnel, helping the brand achieve its awareness, consideration, and conversion goals. This included testing a number of different Amazon Ads solutions.
September 2021 was a particularly important time for the brand because it marked the launch of the new OPPO Reno6 Series of smartphones. To help inform customers about the launch, OPPO used a cross-channel video strategy on Twitch and on Prime Video with the UEFA Champions League.
“In the end, the results, in terms of the brand, were great,” Lazzini said. “We were talking about brand awareness before, we jumped 27 points in less than one year, which is a huge jump. We more than doubled our market segment share. We are excited about these results. Last year in September we celebrated our second million smartphones sold since we launched in Italy three years ago. But, consider that last 1 million was sold in just six months. This gives you the speed of the growth of OPPO in Italy.”
Beyond the launch of the Reno6 Series, OPPO adopted an always-on strategy, reaching customers through display ads, while activating specific campaigns during tentpole events like Prime Day and Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
“It was super important to create compelling stories where the smartphone has a role in our daily lives,” Lazzini said.
Going forward, Lazzini said the bar continues to rise for OPPO, and as the brand continues to innovate, they are looking ahead to driving awareness and positioning themselves as a, fashionable brand for customers in Italy. OPPO is also launching a new program that empowers women in the tech industry.
“The reality is that there are very few women in the STEM industry, and we feel an ownership to do something to change,” Lazzini said. “We want to start narrowing this gap and we have a series of projects that are working in that direction. As a woman I’m really proud to be part of this.”
1 Environics, Social Values Global Consumer Themes, Europe, 2021