- Digital responsibility: The Heins family takes a break from mobile phones on Christmas
- New commercial underscores the importance of direct connections between people
- Telekom urges moderate use of digital devices
Deutsche Telekom launches its Christmas campaign on November 21. In keeping with the spirit of the holiday season, the telecommunications company is celebrating a joyful Christmas with the Heins family – but without mobile phones. For this important family holiday, Walter, Steffie, Clara, Anton, Grandma Charlotte and Uncle Push are all taking some digital downtime.
"Merry unplugged Christmas," according to the commercial’s closing comment. The film shows how the Heins family members turn off their digital devices, one after the other, so they can celebrate the holiday together. It ends at the moment in which the entire family is sitting around the festive Christmas dinner table and is perfectly content with only direct, interpersonal connections.
"365 days a year, Deutsche Telekom connects people around the entire world with its cutting-edge network and products. But there are times when personal connections between people take priority," says Michael Schuld, Head of Communications & Sales Marketing at Telekom Deutschland.
"It's important to us, with our trans-media storytelling concept and the Heins family, to deal with a wide range of socially relevant issues. For us as a telecommunications company, this also includes the issue of digital responsibility," adds Philipp Friedel, Head of Market Communication at Telekom Deutschland. "We encourage our customers to take some downtime on special occasions, like Christmas," says Friedel.
The new commercial, which is the 11th episode with the Heins family, will be broadcast as a 45-second clip from November 21 on major TV networks. A long version – like all other episodes in the commercial series – is available here.
The topic of digitization and the responsible use of digital devices is important to Deutsche Telekom. Accordingly, Deutsche Telekom has teamed with the Teachtoday initiative to offer assistance, primarily to parents and educators, in teaching children and young people about the responsible use of modern communication media.
About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is one of the world's leading integrated telecommunications companies with around 151 million mobile customers, 30 million fixed-network lines and more than 17 million broadband lines (as of December 31, 2014). The Group provides fixed-network, mobile communications, Internet and IPTV products and services for consumers, and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in more than 50 countries and has approximately 228,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenues of 62.7 billion euros in the 2014 financial year – more than 60 percent of it outside Germany.