Total by Verizon has rebranded back to a name initial customers might recognize. The prepaid wireless brand is now Total Wireless and its latest marketing efforts are meant to appeal to a Latinx audience.
Total Wireless, formerly Total by Verizon, looks to give prepaid customers a brand that will not hike prices on them over time and has reliable high-speed connectivity, flexibility and superior devices. It’s doing so with new product offerings, but also with a logo redesign, new store openings and an upcoming campaign that talks with its target audience.
The new branding, done in collaboration with design house Hugo Collective, won’t throw out the Verizon branding altogether but will remove it from the name to help Total Wireless stand out in a competitive marketplace.
“You will continue to see ‘powered by Verizon’ in the store, so we’ll still have notes of Verizon,” Cheryl Gresham, chief marketing officer at Verizon Value, told ADWEEK.
Eliminating customer confusion
Total Wireless has been around for a long time and was part of the TracFone company of brands when Verizon acquired it in November 2001, along with its other brands.
At the time, prepaid customers worried about coverage and dropped calls, and making Total a part of the Verizon network made sense since it had nationwide coverage and a quality wireless name behind it. The brand became Total by Verizon to build awareness and trust.
As the brand grew and evolved, it was mostly purchased at national retailers like Best Buy, Target, Walmart and small bodegas. However, the brand wanted a greater reach into multicultural communities and urban centers, so it started opening up Total by Verizon stores. That unfortunately led to some confusion for customers, with some thinking they were Verizon stores rather than Total.
To eliminate confusion, the rebrand had to happen and the stores had to be woven into the community, which meant appealing to the Latinx demographic of the neighborhoods where the stores were located.
A wider color palette
Total Wireless’ new look and feel includes a proprietary shade of teal developed specifically for Total, a rich blue, and bright yellow, combined with red to signify its parent company, Verizon. The distinctive color palette is designed to enhance the brand’s identity, stand out from the competition and reflect the energy and vibrancy of the communities it serves.
Total worked with Hugo Collective to research what makes the community interested, curious and connected. Hugo is a female and minority-owned agency, and Gresham said they worked with their group of designers and visual ID brand creatives—many of whom had worked previously with larger design firms for big brands including McDonald’s, Cadillac, Gatorade and others—to come up with the right look and feel for the brand.
Hugo Collective brought team members from both New York and Mexico City to discover how to best show up in Latinx markets. They reviewed how other brands appealed to consumers and found that they used more color, more vibrancy and had more flexibility within their design systems, which is why Total added colors outside the traditional Verizon palette.
