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O2 Germany Turns Brand DNA Into Literal Ink With CAN DO DECODED
CAN DO DECODED is a 388-page brand book created by O2 Germany and Serviceplan Bubble in 2023, in which the literal DNA of five culturally transformative personalities was extracted from saliva samples and mixed into the printing ink used throughout the entire volume.
The campaign operates as an internal brand culture initiative distributed across the German market to more than 7,000 Telefónica employees, according to reporting by LBBOnline. Each of the book's five chapters is dedicated to a distinct game changer: sport legend Dick Fosbury, who revolutionised the high jump; Marian Goodell, co-founder of Burning Man; Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales; hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash; and Iranian-German comedian, artist and activist Enissa Amani. Bestselling author Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre conducted original interviews with each subject, translating their stories into literary portraits that collectively run to 388 pages.
The project extends O2's established "can do" brand platform from mass-market advertising into editorial storytelling and internal culture-building. In Germany, where O2 operates as the consumer brand of Telefónica Deutschland, this kind of internal activation carries meaningful weight: the company's employee base represents a distributed brand ambassador network that, when aligned with a clear platform, becomes a channel in its own right. CAN DO DECODED is available in print, digital, and audiobook formats, ensuring the campaign reaches employees regardless of how they consume content. The Clapboard Score for CAN DO DECODED is 82 out of 100, reflecting strong creative originality, strategic coherence, and the measurable ambition of its execution.
O2's "can do" platform was built as a direct response to a perceived social mood of pessimism and passivity in Germany. According to reporting by LBBOnline, Serviceplan Bubble developed the positioning to place O2 as an emblem of optimism, agency, and the belief that meaningful change is achievable. CAN DO DECODED takes that positioning and asks a more demanding question: what does it actually take to be a game changer, and can those qualities be defined, documented, and shared?
The answer the campaign proposes is structural rather than rhetorical. By identifying five figures whose impact on sport, culture, technology, music, and social discourse is externally verifiable, O2 and Serviceplan Bubble avoid the trap of self-congratulatory brand storytelling. The subjects earn their place in the narrative, and the brand earns its association with them by proximity to a clearly articulated shared quality: the can do mentality. This approach is strategically significant in Germany's competitive telecommunications market. Telefónica Deutschland held a mobile service-revenue share of 33.7 percent in Germany in 2023, ranking second behind Deutsche Telekom at 37.5 percent and ahead of Vodafone at 28.8 percent, according to data from smartweb.de. In a market where Deutsche Telekom's German operating-segment revenue reached approximately 25.2 billion euros in 2023, as reported by Report Telekom, differentiation on brand character rather than network specification alone is a defensible long-term strategy. CAN DO DECODED is not a product campaign. It is a values declaration, made credible by the quality of its subjects, the rigour of its production, and the directness of its scientific conceit. According to house-of-communication.com, Serviceplan Bubble became O2's integrated agency model in 2020, giving the partnership the institutional continuity needed to develop work this conceptually committed.
CAN DO DECODED is built around a single creative idea executed with scientific and editorial precision. The DNA of five game-changing personalities was physically extracted from saliva samples and incorporated into the printing ink used to produce the entire 388-page volume, as documented by LBBOnline. This is not a metaphor dressed up as an execution; it is a literal act that transforms the object itself into evidence of the brand's claim.
The design system reinforces this idea at every level. The characteristics associated with each game changer — and by extension their respective game changer gene — run through the book as a continuous design element, according to the campaign's own documentation. The "Liquid Cover" is the most visible expression of this system: it contains the DNA ink used throughout the interior, functioning as both packaging and proof of concept. The result is an object in which content, design, and material are unified by a single governing idea rather than applied as separate layers. Production was handled by a collaboration that included Serviceplan Bubble, Drive by Heroes, Plan.Net, Siepmann, and German Wahnsinn, as reported by LBBOnline. The editorial layer is equally considered. Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, an author with a documented commercial and literary profile in Germany, was commissioned to conduct the interviews, lending the portraits a voice that sits outside corporate communication conventions. Michael Falkensteiner, Director Brand and Marketing Communications at O2, described the conceptual intent directly: "Outstanding personalities carry the 'Game Changer gene' within them. It is the basis for setting new standards and breaking through conventions. This is the task we set ourselves as a brand every day. This gene is detectable in every drop of printer ink," as quoted by LBBOnline. The campaign was also featured in LBBOnline's May 2024 Cannes Contenders selection, which framed it as a distinctive response to conventional brand book formats.
No single consolidated performance dataset for CAN DO DECODED has been publicly released. What is documented is the campaign's award trajectory and the strategic metrics associated with the broader "can do" platform from which it extends. According to reta-europe.com, O2's "Brand for Me" metric increased by 15 percent under the "can do" platform, with a stated business objective to grow that measure by 28 percent compared with 2020 levels. These figures reflect platform-level performance rather than metrics specific to CAN DO DECODED as a standalone activation.
The campaign's external recognition is well documented. According to oneclub.org, CAN DO DECODED received recognition from The One Club. The project was also reported by Little Black Book as a Cannes Lions contender in 2024, and according to red-dot.org, the campaign earned a Red Dot Award, one of Germany's most internationally recognised design and communication honours. The campaign was distributed to more than 7,000 Telefónica employees in Germany, as reported by LBBOnline, representing a defined and measurable internal audience. As an internal brand culture initiative, reach within that audience is the primary distribution metric, and the multi-format approach — print, digital, and audiobook — indicates a deliberate effort to maximise penetration across different consumption habits. Structurally, CAN DO DECODED is effective because it closes the gap between external brand claim and internal brand experience. In Germany's competitive telecommunications market, where Telefónica Deutsche competes directly with Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone on both network performance and brand positioning, internal alignment is not a secondary objective. It is a prerequisite for credible external communication. The campaign earns its 82 out of 100 Clapboard Score through the integrity of its concept, the ambition of its production, and its role as a model for how brand books can transcend the category.
CAN DO DECODED is a 388-page brand book created by O2 Germany and Serviceplan Bubble in 2023. It features interviews with five cultural game changers conducted by author Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, and was printed using ink containing real DNA extracted from each subject's saliva samples, distributed to more than 7,000 Telefónica employees in Germany.
O2 used real DNA to make its brand claim literal rather than metaphorical. The "can do" platform positions O2 as a game changer brand in Germany, and by extracting DNA from five proven game changers and printing it into the book's ink, Serviceplan Bubble transformed an abstract brand value into a physically verifiable, scientifically grounded creative statement.
The five subjects are Dick Fosbury, who revolutionised the high jump; Marian Goodell, co-founder of Burning Man; Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales; hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash; and Enissa Amani, an Iranian-German comedian, artist and activist. Each is profiled in a dedicated chapter written by bestselling German author Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, according to campaign documentation.
CAN DO DECODED received recognition from The One Club, according to oneclub.org. It was named a Cannes Lions contender by LBBOnline in May 2024 and earned a Red Dot Award, according to red-dot.org, one of Germany's most internationally prominent design and communications honours for work produced in 2023.
CAN DO DECODED earns a Clapboard Score of 82 out of 100. This score reflects the campaign's strong creative originality in using literal DNA as a brand expression, its strategic coherence within O2's established "can do" platform in Germany, and the ambition and craft quality of its multi-format production by Serviceplan Bubble.
CAN DO DECODED extends O2's "can do" platform, developed by Serviceplan Bubble from 2020, from mass-market advertising into internal brand culture. In Germany's competitive telecommunications market — where O2 held 33.7 percent mobile service-revenue share in 2023 according to smartweb.de — the campaign reinforces brand identity directly with Telefónica's 7,000-plus German employees.
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