• by Aaron Baar , November 22, 2016

Verizon continues its adaptation of past hits for its prepaid wireless programs, this time customizing“Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis for a thrifty, holiday message. 

The campaign continues a theme started earlier this year, targeting Millennials with parodies of familiar past hits. The first spot featured a group of young consumers in a diner airing out their own version of Kelis’ “Milkshake,” which racked up 13 million views on YouTube. (A second Spanish-language spot racked up 2.5 million views on YouTube.)

“Verizon’s previous spots in this style had unprecedented response on YouTube,” Dave Bowen, Verizon’s director of brand and consumer marketing, tells Marketing Daily. “We found that the tone and approachability of these spots resonated with multicultural Millennials and that this format helped with consumers’ memorability.”

The new commercial depicts a young couple in a laundromat. The girl asks the boy whether he has any good gift ideas, leading the man to break out into song. “Verizon Prepaid’s gonna be my gift/no extra charges means money stays in my pocket,” he raps, as others look on (and some join in). “It’s got easy streaming/Others are too stingy.” The spot continues its theme touting its “always-on data.” The current spot will air in English and Spanish versions.

“Our goal with this campaign is to target multicultural Millennial consumers who live in a culturally fluid world in which ethnicity and race don’t define them, but shared connections to cultures and subcultures do,” Bowen says. “We used a pop-culture hit, as music is core to connecting with Millennials, and overlaid it with clever lyrics to effectively connect with our consumer and highlight that Verizon gives them the freedom that they want with its prepaid offering.”