The ads were part of a massive rebranding effort for SoftBank, which bought out Vodafone in March 2006 to become Japan's third-largest cellphone company. Vodafone had entered Japan in 2003, acquiring J-Phone to become the sole foreign competitor in Japan's cellphone wars. Over three years it failed to win a larger share of subscribers and remained a lagging also-ran behind powerhouses NTT DoCoMo and KDDI's au brand.

SoftBank, founded by entrepreneur Masayoshi Son in 1981, is a conglomerate of primarily Internet- and finance-related companies. Its wealth of IT-related businesses and experience in marketing its Yahoo! BB broadband service at cut-rate prices were assets that could counter some of Vodafone's perceived shortcomings, which included a lack of content and features, as well as uncompetitive rates. But the first challenge was to cold-call consumers with the message that SoftBank was not Vodafone.

Its first series of ads communicated this message loud and clear. They featured the logos of both companies and the starting date of the takeover, but the dominant color and design was all SoftBank. Yesterday Vodafone, today SoftBank. The ads also featured for the first time SoftBank's new logo, two parallel bars that resemble, not coincidentally, an equal sign. This clever piece of design serves a dual function of brand symbol and visual copy, indicating equivalence between SoftBank and other elements that appear in its advertising. In the initial ad, the message was simply: Vodafone = SoftBank. Through each consecutive ad, the brand image expanded, association by association: iPod = SoftBank; Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz = SoftBank; Pantone = SoftBank.

Though Vodafone's presence still lingers through a joint venture partnership to develop handsets, features, and content with SoftBank, the brick-and-mortar construction of a new brand image has effectively sealed Vodafone off in the past. Co-branding has played a major role in this. SoftBank's deep connections in the world of personal computing and IT have produced alliances with the seemingly paradoxical and enviable trio of Apple, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. These alliances are highly strategic, each providing a competitive edge. Apple has licensed the iPod for use with select SoftBank handsets, allowing SoftBank to gain ground on au, the leader in music-player cellphones. The Yahoo! and Microsoft partnerships have dialed up new web-service software capabilities. Windows Mobile is now featured in the X01HT model, the closest thing to a cellphone version of the BlackBerry that has been released in Japan. Curiously, this kind of model will probably appeal more to ex-pat businessmen, as Japan has been slow to adopt PDAs.

SoftBank has also taken Vodafone's "international" image and improved on it, no small feat. It continues to expand on its market-leading global roaming service, adding new regions and video phone service in parts of Europe and Asia. Meanwhile, Japanese personalities were passed over in favor of Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz as the brand's television and print advertising icons. Choosing such recognizable yet neutral figures allowed SoftBank to advance the values of international, cool, sexy, and fun without committing to anything more specific—appealing to just about everyone but the cynical.

Online, SoftBank displays the same good sense as in its advertising. While the sites of DoCoMo and au fall prey to information clutter, SoftBank's site is clean, stylish, and easy to navigate. A huge, centrally placed Flash window dominates the viewfinder, displaying a series of product movies that are decidedly on-brand. Clicking on the "English" button shifts one over to an English version that is nearly identical in terms of visuals and content. Competitors, by contrast, do not maintain the same standards in their English sites. (See the English versions of DoCoMo and au.)

With such a bang-up job of rebranding, is SoftBank just cruising to success? Not exactly. SoftBank's track record with customer relations so far looks set to undermine any forward steps. At the end of 2006, a couple of major bungles had the press jumping all over the brand. In October, SoftBank drew the ire of the public as its systems collapsed under what it claimed were massive amounts of new applicants, forcing it to refuse applications for a couple days. Then, a couple months later, the Fair Trade Commission ruled that its "0 yen" ads touting extremely low rates were misleading, inciting further public mistrust. In fact, a SoftBank that puts profits ahead of customer satisfaction is a familiar tune to those who remember its aggressive sales tactics and lack of user support during the first marketing wave of its Yahoo! BB ISP service.

On February 8, 2007, CEO Masayoshi Son announced SoftBank's operating profit for the April-December period rose seven times over the previous year, to ¥197 billion (US$ 1.66 billion). Its new price plan attracted 10.5 million new subscribers just three weeks after its inception in mid-January. Rumor has it that SoftBank will distribute the iPhone in Japan. So things look pretty rosy in the short term, but we may be reading about another buyout in three years' time. In the meantime, SoftBank serves as a useful case study in rebranding.

Patrick Williamson works in marketing and corporate communications in Tokyo. He previously worked for four years at a leading global brand consultancy.