• by Aaron Baar , September 3, 2015

Verizon Wireless’s “Can you hear me now” guy may soon be permanently out of a job. (Although to be fair, he hasn’t appeared in any advertising for a while now, anyway.)

WeBoost, a maker of cellular signal boosters, is launching an awareness campaign to educate consumers about the availability of their (and competitors’) products. The campaign, which began this week using YouTube celebrity Grant Thompson (a.k.a. “The King of Random”) encourages consumers to “Seize the Bar.”

“Cellphone signal issues are something everyone experiences, but people don’t know there’s a solution that’s easy to install,” Jamie Elgie, chief marketing officer at weBoost, tells Marketing Daily. “We want to be the rising tide that lifts all boats.”

For the first portion of the campaign, Thompson will produce content tailored to show off the technology, having built a brand by showcasing ingenious “life hacks” to make everyday tasks easier. The first video, “10 Cellphone Life Hacks,” show tips such as using a cell phone to map signal sweet spots and cell towers to rolling down one’s car windows to get a much stronger signal. One of the tips also includes installing a signal booster, showing off how simple they are to use, and noting that weBoost’s technology works with all networks. 

The effort, which will continue for the next year or so, is intended to educate consumers about the availability of signal-boosting technologies. Other elements of the “Seize the Bar” campaign will be forthcoming, although Elgie declined to outline them.

“[Thompson] is going to be a starting point for this campaign. We’ve got a lot more planned. We anticipate a lot more people are going to know a lot more about cell phone signal bosses over the next 6-12 months.”