• by Fern Siegel , May 22, 2024

What better way to illustrate differential treatment than via love-hungry reality stars?

That's the inspiration for a new series of spots, in English and Spanish, that highlight the T-Mobile Metro Flex plan.

The "Nada Nada Island" campaign, created by Barkley OKRP, talks about relationships in which people feel ignored or ghosted. Airing on broadcast and streaming platforms, the focus, however, isn't love gone wrong. It's how cellphone carriers treat new vs. existing customers.

As one man throws his phone to the waves, the announcer says: “Stop getting mistreated by your wireless carrier. Now at Metro, existing customers are treated the same as new ones.”

Metro Flex offers customers free 5G phones when they sign up and the same deals as new customers when they stay a year — a first for the prepaid industry.

Reality TV stars from recent seasons of "Love Island," "Love Is Blind" and "La Casa de Los Famosos" appear on TV and social video, including Marco Donatelli, Lauren Speed-Hamilton, Jessica Vestal and Clovis Nienow.

Trish Cox, vice president, national advertising and brand at T-Mobile, told Agency Daily: “It was this fun pivot point that we used to launch Metro Flex, a groundbreaking new program that acknowledges new wireless customers get treated better than existing customers. Our cast of cross-cultural reality stars have sparked a real conversation on social about Metro Flex. It’s a fantastic demonstration of what we mean by Nada Yada Yada.”

In addition, an integrated social campaign has the reality stars share "Nada Yada Island" stories with their millions of followers on social feeds. The campaign also features radio, OOH and digital advertising.

"No one likes being ghosted," says Rony Caster, group creative director at Barkley OKRP. "Once we tapped into that insight, and those words in particular, everything opened up for us."