Australian telco Amaysim is spruiking its “amazingly simple telco” tagline by convincing Baywatch legend David Hasselhoff to officially go hassle-free – changing his name to David Hoff.
Developed by creative agency Special Group, the ad campaign has been heralded by Amaysim's chief commercial officer, Andrew Balint, as its biggest since the company's launch and one which has now attracted even more attention than they ever anticipated.
Balint told AdNews that the Special Group, which came on board as the telco's agency of record in August, were so sure of their idea that they only came up with one.
“The brief we gave them was that this is all about positioning Amaysim as the amazingly simple telco and making life as simple as possible. They developed only one campaign idea, they were so confident with what they came up with. We thought what better way than to get David Hasselhoff to simplify his life and drop the hassle to become David Hoff,” said Balint.
The campaign got underway on Friday morning with Hoff tweeting the video about his name change to his 520,000 Twitter followers. 
“I've been wanting to drop the hassle from my life for years. Now I've made it official,” says the actor in the spot, as he holds up a certificate of name change describing him simply as “David Hoff”.
After a storm of media coverage in news outlets across Australia and the US, it was later revealed that his decision was part of the Amaysim campaign and a new video was released adding the amaysim logo and the tagline: “Less hassle, more hoff.”
Other videos followed, with Hoff telling customers about the benefits of simplifying their lives with Amaysim.
Balint told AdNews: “We were confident we'd landed a really great campaign idea and we were very pleasantly surprised by just how global it has become particularly in the US and Australia.”
The campaign went live yesterday from a pay perspective during the cricket on Channel Ten and will be appearing on TV, radio, YouTube,and Facebook. It will run until the end of February next year.
“We've already seen a notable uplift in terms of traffic to the site and we're expecting pretty solid results,” Balint said.
Managing partner at Special Group, Cade Heyde, called Amaysim, Australia's fourth largest telco, “agile, ambitious, collaborative and innovative” and said it's been a delight to work with them.
“It’s been great to partner with a company whose culture so closely fits with our own and we can't wait to see where we can help take the brand,” Heyde added.
Balint described Special Group as an agency that aligns with Amaysim's values and which will work with the brand “day in and day out” on its image.
Asked how hard it was to convince David Hoff to change his name, Balint quipped: “It was actually really easy because he really bought into the campaign idea. He was totally happy to jump on board. He's a guy with a great sense of humour and he really understands the Aussie sense of humour.”
The campaign went live a day before Optus released its latest spot featuring British comedian Ricky Gervais.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.