Huawei Rebels
A retail community that turned vendors into fans.
Our Services: → Strategy, Concept → Branding → UX & UI Design → Frontend & Backend Development → Campaign, Content → Education & Trainings → Live-Events / Roadshow
Problem
In the early 2010s, the German smartphone market was dominated by two players — Apple and Samsung. At peak times, those two brands commanded a combined market share of 50%. The rest was divided between varying brands in varying proportions.
When Huawei entered the German market in 2011, they set out to become a true leader in the category — not just one more of those “other” brands in the pie chart. They pushed into the market with aggressive investments. Successfully. They started to build up market share quickly.
But parts of the market potential remained untapped. When people entered the stores of telco providers, the sales staff at the counter would primarily recommend the default choices, Apple or Samsung. Not Huawei. Because they didn’t know the brand and lacked experience with its products.
Without the help of the providers themselves, we had to find a way to motivate the employees in the stores to learn about Huawei and the premium quality of their phones. Voluntarily. In their free time.
How? By making retail communications fun.
Solution
Traditional sales engagement programs are boring. They convey facts and figures through boring spec sheets and boring presentations. They may explain the features, but they fail at evoking real excitement for a brand and its products. But this is exactly what we were aiming for.
Together with Huawei we redefined the tone of their retail communications. And the style. And the format. In fact, we changed everything about the way retail marketing was practiced at Huawei and in the category so far.
We created Huawei REBELS — a unique retail ecosystem that uses gaming concepts to recruit, educate and continuously engage telco sales staff across the stores of all major providers and vendors. Today, REBELS, with its distinctive and strong visual identity, is Europe’s largest retailer programme in the telco industry.
Here’s how it works.
REBELS is built on four main pillars. The REBELS online platform is the heart of the ecosystem. It’s the main hub for all the content about the brand and its products and the central meeting point for the community. By interacting with the content on the platform and by contributing to the community, users can earn points and climb the ranks within the REBELS community to get access to specific perks and achievements. The tasks change frequently and range from simple ones, like the completion of a product training, to more competitive challenges, like a Huawei-specific quiz duel against other members of the community. The earned points can be redeemed immediately in the platform’s highly successful REBELS merchandise online shop. The credit can also be used to become an early tester of Huawei’s newest hero products.
The second part of the ecosystem are the REBELS trainings. They ensure that the store staff is informed about the Huawei products and their key features and is able to advice customers accordingly. The trainings include web-based trainings on the REBELS platform and provider platforms, classroom and live trainings as well as training material for on-the-go consumption. For Huawei’s trainers and field forces, the REBELS community provides a unique opportunity to build long-term relationships with the vendors in advance of and beyond the training dates and to better understand their needs.
The third part are the REBELS events. They include beta testings, keynote and launch events, as well as exclusive cooperations with Huawei partners, like the popular RebellComedy crew. The highlight however is an elaborate, annual roadshow with more than 20 stops across Germany. That’s where all of Huawei’s trade partners get together, have fun and experience the latest devices and gadgets first hand.
The fourth pillar of the REBELS ecosystem is a closed Facebook group that allows Huawei to communicate with the community on an ongoing basis. This is where we regularly inform about new products and content, organize games and events and gather valuable insights to improve our platform. Also, the Facebook group is a fast and easy way for REBELS members to connect with Huawei’s service department. Any question or issue that a customer brings up in-store can be posted up here and will be answered by the community or the Huawei service specialists immediately. That increases the service quality substantially.
All of this works smoothly because it’s being handled in an integrated and collaborative way between Huawei’s retail marketing department, BEJOND and a number of trusted partners. Every element of the ecosystem, online or offline, is interlinked, creating an infinite engagement loop. With each interaction, the value for the user increases. And the fact that everything comes out of one hand ensures that the user experience is consistent across all touchpoints.
Results
Since its foundation in 2017, the REBELS community has continuously grown and exceeded all expectations. Today it’s Europe’s largest retail community by any major smartphone brand. Over 60% of German telco retail sales staff are active members. 45% of them visit the community every day!
The average engagement cost per employee is less than 100 Euros, which makes REBELS 20x more efficient than any other traditional field force activity.
Instead of just optimizing Huawei’s retail marketing process, we in fact established a strong, stand-alone service brand. A real category innovation that helped to establish Huawei as the third force in the smartphone market.
Huawei Rebels is a true team effort. Its success is a result of the continuous commitment and enthusiasm of the amazing retail team at Huawei Germany, the trainers and contributors, and all the external partners, working together in an open, collaborative way.
The best ideas aren’t made in silos.
