For many white collar workers the past 18 months have seen working from home become the norm. Yet, EE and Saatchi & Saatchi have taken WFH to a whole new level in their latest campaign; where the network uses its Full Fibre Max broadband to land a plane from a UK home.

The campaign features an ad directed by BAFTA award-winning producer Tom Hooper and follows a real life family of five, the Saleys. The family watch on excitedly as their Harrow home is transformed into a remote air traffic control system connected by their EE Full Fibre Max broadband router.

While all three Saley children are gaming on their PlayStation and parents are streaming content to their laptops, tablets and smartphones via EE Full Fibre Max broadband; EE was able to broadcast huge streams of data from the family home, providing accurate airspeed and rate of descent, all glitch-free, to assist pilots to fly and land the plane on the runway as the family watched on.

The film shows audiences an impressive remote flight unit set up in The Saley’s dining room to share data in real-time directly to the pilot, aiding the smooth landing at Cambridge airport. 

“Our new campaign is all about EE broadband that can handle anything you throw at it, and this real-life demonstration helps to communicate that in a really exciting way.” explained Pete Jeavons, Marketing Communications Director at BT and EE, “In today’s connected family home, we know how many devices can be online at one time and this is increasing all the time, so this demonstration was about showing that despite how many devices are already relying on EE Full Fibre, the broadband can still cope with so much more.”

The TV campaign, featuring Kevin Bacon, will be combined with out of home and digital activation.

Connectivity is Crucial

Connectivity has never been more important than in recent years. Following a pandemic that has seen the world forced to stay indoors, broadband has acted as a lifeline enabling working from home and precious contact with loved ones.

Broadband usage surged more than 30% throughout the pandemic and as lockdowns continue to loom, getting the UK connected is crucial. While most won’t need to land a plane from their living rooms, seeing such an impressive stunt carried out from a family home offers reassurance that everyday online tasks will run smoothly. 

Show, don’t tell

Where many service providers highlight the importance of connectivity, in this campaign Saatchi & Saatchi and EE have opted to show audiences the capabilities of their tech by pushing the service to its upper limit. 

"EE's new Full Fibre broadband can handle anything you throw at it, so we put it to the test with a product demo on an epic scale. It was a real team effort from a group of word-class experts in their fields.” Guillermo Vega, Chief Creative Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi “From an Academy Award-winning director through to the air traffic controllers and our incredible technical production partner The 5Gs, this all-star team came together to make the seemingly impossible, possible."

Jeavons added, “Our Full Fibre Max broadband connects 100 devices all at once, so you can download music, stream sport, enjoy glitch-free gaming and even land an aircraft all at the same time, because it can really handle anything you throw at it.”

In a time where people are looking to brands for essential services and reliability, those that put their money where their mouths are and feature product capabilities front and center will gain the trust of consumers.