Leftover call time turned into a year of connection for 500 people with disabilities / StarHub "4G4GOOD"

The problem

Singapore has one of the highest mobile connection rates in the world, with people owning an average of 1.5 phones each. But even there, people with disabilities and people in need were still being left unconnected. As a telecom company, StarHub had made "connecting people" its mission.

The insight

Every month, unused call minutes, texts, and data just expire and vanish. 4G4GOOD zeroed in on that waste. By playfully reading "4G" (as in generation) as "4G(ood)," the name itself carries the idea of not letting leftovers go to waste.

The idea

The mechanism let StarHub's postpaid mobile customers donate their unused call minutes, data, and texts with a single SMS. The donations went to five welfare organizations, including AWWA and CPAS. Donating cost no effort and no money—the core idea was making participation as easy as just handing over what you already weren't using.

What happened

In the first month alone, over 7,000 pledges came in, donating 720,000 minutes of calls, 3 million texts, and 9 terabytes of data. That was enough to support a year's worth of communication for 500 people with disabilities. At Cannes Lions 2015, the campaign won Gold in Promo & Activation and Bronze in Direct.

Afterthought

Instead of asking "please donate," they asked "want to use what you're not using anyway?"—almost unfairly clever. There's zero pain of taking money out of your wallet, yet it genuinely adds up to a year of connection for someone. There's something refreshingly honest about a telecom company building a charity out of the very mechanics of its own service.

Awards

• Cannes Lions Gold 2015