Globally speaking, the year 2020, affectionately known as ZOZO 👹, was not among the best for obvious reasons. But narrowing the perspective a bit – to the limits of the deck of a certain drakkar called Mobile Vikings – it turns out that Odin favored us. Neither the crisis nor the competition sank us, and the ever-growing crew of Vikings allowed us to act even more dynamically and more effectively snatch users away from other operators. Here are the most important events from the onboard chronicle of 2020! 📓
JANUARY ❄️
We sail into 2020 with a crew of over 52,000 Vikings. ⛵⛵⛵ The air is crisp, life is good, and the prospects are broad. It's going to be a good year, we just need to learn to work again after the holiday breaks and rest a bit after New Year's conquests. They say people are getting sick in China.
FEBRUARY 🍻
We're working hard on a new offer and a certain surprise that will never come to fruition, but we don't know that yet, so to achieve it, we're holding Viking Beer elections – and who else but you, members of our invaluable crew, would choose the flavor. 🗳️ In the meantime, we're glancing at the increasingly worrying headlines appearing online.
Yes, we know – the beer was chosen, and then it disappeared… but we promise to return to the topic as soon as the virus allows us to gather in large hordes again and raise toasts with fine beverages!
MARCH 🖤
After months of work, we proudly present our new offer, which expresses our approach to telecommunications: a number with Mobile Vikings is just the beginning, and users are treated like people, not a string of 9 digits. MATCH consists of three plans: for 20 PLN, 25 PLN, and 35 PLN, so every Viking can find something for themselves. 🖤 We put a lot of effort into it, we even shot a nice commercial featuring Vikings themselves, and the community also had an influence on the elements that appeared in it. A pink drakkar saving shipwrecked people from the Titanic? You asked for it! However, we're hearing that the new offer needs some adjustments… 🛠️
AND SUDDENLY… PANDEMIC! 🦠
It's starting. In mid-March, our Command Center in Wrocław closes its doors, and we put on our tracksuits to continue working from home. As a virtual operator, this process didn't hurt us at all. It's a bit strange, but new motivation is quickly growing within us. If we're doing well, we need to help others in difficult times.
We are organizing the Viking Support hotline, whose goal is to connect people who need help with people who can provide it. Small gestures, like doing groceries or taking a pet for a walk, turn out to be golden during quarantine. We ourselves take care of the Viking seniors and call all older individuals under our banner to ask if they need help. 📞 Some ask for small shopping trips, others just need a simple chat. Our Help Desk handles both cases perfectly.
APRIL 👿
Our entire lives moved from the streets to the internet. And although we feel at home online, after a month of lockdown, our nerves start to fray. What does a Viking do when they're boiling mad and need an outlet for their rage? They sing, of course! 🎤 We shot Virusong, the quarantine anthem for everyone who wanted to express how incredibly crazy they're going from just sitting at home.
After regaining our emotional balance, we can focus on what truly matters: helping others. This time, directly. In partnership with the Leopardus pet store chain, we supply the Wrocław animal shelter with warm blankets and a stock of food. 🐕 We also visit the gentlemen at the Brother Albert shelter for the homeless with a trunk full of necessary food and hygiene items. 👨 And at the end of the month, we arrive in Jaszkotle, where a charming group of residents at the care and treatment center receives another portion of donations, led by a plush unicorn and is quickly knighted as true Vikings! 🦄 Does anyone still doubt that it's better to spend money on such initiatives than on TV ads and hiring celebrities?
After listening to the crew's voices, we also decide to give Vikings even more power – in a network-wide vote, you decide on the new shape of the MATCH offer. After all, it's your network. From April, we're adding free data rollover to MATCH! 💪
MAY ⛑️
Another month of the pandemic, the sun shines through the windows, and we're still working from home. However, we leave our homes to organize further aid initiatives. In May, Mobile Vikings forms an eternal pact with MotoVolunteers, and at the request of one of our Viqueens, we fund COVID tests for the Bonifraters Hospice. We also set off on an expedition to the TARA foundation with bags full of horse feed and more, as well as Viking strength ready to help with daily tasks, which are numerous with several hundred hooves. 🐎🐎🐎
We're also fulfilling another request from our crew – you wanted to be able to contribute to our charity events, and from May, this is possible! The Viking Store now features Lifeboats, with which you can send gigabytes accumulated on your account to a cause chosen by the community. 🚣♂️ We then convert the collected data pool into gold, which we use to fulfill the needs of the given organization. Simple as a mast!
JUNE 🩸
Ah, bloodshed – who knows a better way to welcome summer? We don't, which is why we join the Blood Barrel campaign on Wykop. From then on, every Wykop user who reports donating blood or plasma in the relevant thread receives a free month of Mobile Vikings service. In practice, this means that some honorary donors can have their phone with us #forfree for several subsequent editions of the campaign. 🤑
In June, we also welcome a new, special crew member aboard. For some time now, we've been wondering what animal best embodies the spirit of Mobile Vikings. Naturally, we turn to our Vikings with this question. They unanimously declare that their spirit guide should be a wolf. 🐺 Through the Wrocław Zoo, we meet the wolf Luna. We decide to adopt her, but it seems the opposite has happened. 🙃
JULY 🧼
Staying at home is becoming increasingly difficult, and the pandemic seems to be letting up a bit. We're wondering what to do to make being outdoors as safe as possible. 🤔 We want to give Wrocław residents free rein! And so we do, literally and figuratively, by funding over a dozen tastefully black hand sanitizer dispensers, which we place in public spaces, including at Krasnolód ice cream parlors and Etno cafes. To hell with the virus!
Meanwhile, we test the realme 6 phone. This new brand on the Polish market gets our thumbs up, and we recommend the model to Vikings who aren't afraid to explore new things, don't like overpaying, but would like to hold a solid tool in their hands. ⚔️
AUGUST 🦅
If anyone thinks you can't be a free Viking and a serious entrepreneur at the same time, they're mistaken. As proof, we're introducing an offer for businesses 👔 – and in it, the same helpful Help Desk, convenient terms, and treating everyone like a human. That is, the norm at Mobile Vikings. Subscriptions are a thing of the past!
We've barely started leaving our homes, and we already have to flee back into them. Danger is in the air again. And it buzzes. 🦟 A mosquito plague descends upon Wrocław, and we scratch our heads not only because we've been bitten. We're diligently wondering how we can repel the attack and bring relief not only to ourselves but to all city residents. Swifts come to our aid – small birds that eat thousands of mosquitoes every day. So, we quickly order a whole bunch of wooden nesting boxes and distribute them near our Command Center, so that in the next season, mosquitoes will be just a memory. The interest exceeds our wildest expectations, the boxes are gone in an hour. 💨 We'll probably have to do a rerun…
SEPTEMBER 🧹
We've known for a long time that we have people of diverse talents among us. For example, Viking Marek. Before he donned his helmet, he was a music producer and founder of the Blend Records label, which is no small feat in the Polish hip-hop scene. 💿 Do you know Grammatik, Waldemar Kasta, or donGURALesko? You can thank him for that. Together with Marek, we're heading to the Popkiller Awards ceremony – it turns out we have a lot in common with the hip-hop community. We're already figuring out how to further develop this kindred spirit! 🤜🤛
We also accept the Wykop challenge and set out to make the world a little better by… cleaning up trash. You won't believe how much filth is scattered around the Oder River. 🤦♀️ Part of our team and two brave Vikings embark on a great cleanup, unfazed by the storm of the century. We're not made of sugar, after all. The result? Over a dozen full bags, more pleasant-to-behold surroundings of Niskie Łąki, and free laundry for everything we're wearing.
OCTOBER 👻
The restless rains have shaken the orchard, we're a bit hit by autumn melancholy, and we're slowing down, while working on projects that will see the light of day in the coming months. But we wouldn't be ourselves if we weren't different and didn't do something for our Vikings! 😌 On Halloween, we introduce the first phone to our offer – and what's more, a few units are up for grabs for free! Choco One Pro is an innovative model that you can't get anywhere else, a truly sweet deal. Smartphones available in the Viking Store sell like hotcakes.
We hope they tasted good ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
NOVEMBER 📵
With the pandemic looming over our heads again, we retreat to our homes. The cycle of day and night transforms into a cycle of looking at screens – the computer and phone at work, the TV and phone in the evenings, and just the phone before bed… 📲 We suspect we're not the only ones experiencing this. But we are a mobile operator, so why should it bother us that people use our services? Yet, we realize it's time to put down our smartphones and address the problem of smartphone addiction, which is particularly evident in this strange, isolated year. We are organizing the GIGAodpowiedzialność (GIGAresponsibility) campaign, as part of which we conduct a free webinar with psychologists, where our Vikings could learn how much they control their phone, and how much it controls them. ⛓️
DECEMBER 🦾
Finally, finally, 2020 is coming to an end! We look with hope towards the coming year, but before Christmas, a real fireworks display awaits us. First and foremost, we celebrate our 7th birthday, laughing inwardly at the prophecies of imminent downfall that accompanied our arrival on the Polish market in 2013. 🎂 We sail on, we sail stronger, and we sail for you! 👊
As part of the Lifeboats initiative, we organize the Viking Noble Parcel. 34 parcels, funded together by Vikings and our team, are carefully packed and handed over to a needy family from Wrocław. 🎁
Like everyone else, we're waiting for the release of Cyberpunk 2077. 🤖 However, not just to take sick leave, lock ourselves in the basement, and pretend for a week that we're actually a sexy mercenary burning Night City to the ground, with Keanu Reeves as our best friend. 😎 We get an idea to snatch some cyberpunk technology into the real world – in the form of an exoskeleton. This super-modern device gets people who never dreamed of walking again back on their feet. So, we combine pleasure with utility – for 50 hours straight, we play the game, stream the entire process, and collect funds for the purchase of an exoskeleton or rehabilitation stays using it. We manage to raise 12,400 PLN. Exhausted, we head home for the holidays. 😴
We end 2020 with 65,000 Vikings on board. Mobile Vikings is growing stronger. And in 2021, you'll hear even more about us, we're already working on it. 💪💪💪
