They don’t have a product to sell people yet, but Data & Audio Visual Enterprises (DAVE) Wireless wants consumers to wait until they do.

The new wireless carrier officially launches in early 2010, but has deployed a pre-launch advertising campaign to dissuade consumers from signing lengthy new wireless contracts over the holiday season.

‘We think of it as almost a public service announcement campaign,’ Sara Moss, VP marketing, Dave Wireless, joked with MiC. ‘Every year, 35% of all phones are bought during the fourth quarter. Everybody comes out with these great-sounding deals, and a lot of people sign up for a contract, and we just wanted to let people know that this is not the year to be doing that.’

The ‘Competition is coming’ campaign features clean and simple text-based creative – done in-house – with slogans such as ‘Like contacts? Go to law school.’ The media buy, handled by Zenith Optimedia, covers billboards and transit shelters in Ottawa and the GTA, as well as the National Post and the Globe and Mail.

The media strategy was simply to catch consumers’ attention while they are out shopping, Moss said, which is why they kept the creative simple and focused on OOH.

The campaign will run the length of December.